


Scattered Soul Ties

by Turtlelady9



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Family, Fluff, Romance, supercat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2018-09-28 09:00:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 39,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10082585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turtlelady9/pseuds/Turtlelady9
Summary: Alternative Universe: Kara (Danvers) Kent is a 36 year old award winning international journalist, who is now applying for a leading national level journalist position at CatCo's National City Hub. Kara is not Supergirl, but she is still a super-powered alien. Cat/Catherine (once Willis) Grant is 45 and she runs CatCo Worldwide Media. She has no ex-husbands, no Adam. Cat's one former husband died. Kara met Cat and her (now deceased) younger sister Carolyn/Lynn a long time ago, but Cat doesn't remember right away. Kara was 18 going on 19 back then. Cat was 27 and Carolyn was 22. Kara is now a single mother to two 17 year old children of her own, fraternal twins, a boy, Cameron and a girl, Callie. Cat is also a single mother to two 17 year olds, a boy, Carter and a girl, Clarissa, who is really Cat's niece. Kara is both a Danvers and a Kent. Alex is still her foster sister and Clark is still her cousin and Superman.





	1. Interview and Introductions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In 2017, Kara interviews for a new job at CatCo
> 
> In 1999, Kara starts college at National City University

 

* * *

 

 **First Thursday in March 2017             5** **0th Floor** **CatCo Worldwide Media**

Cat presses her office's intercom phone line: "Miss Teschmacher, please send in my 3:15 appointment and go get me another _preferably_   _hot_  latte this time. Chop! Chop!"

Miss Grant's secretary, Eve Teschmacher picks up the receiver on her end and responds, "Right away, Miss Grant. Miss Kent, please go on in."

Eve races off to grab her boss' fresh hopefully hot enough latte as Kara walks by her.

Kara Kent carefully opens the glass doors to Cat Grant's office, gracefully steps inside and walks up to Cat's desk and confidently, but also slightly nervously extends her right hand to try and shake Cat's. In the same moment, Cat stands up and stares at something on her side of the desk and doesn't even bother to look over at Kara let alone extend a hand to shake.

Instead, Cat simply starts speaking, "Welcome, Miss Kent, I presume? You can put your hand down now, but by all means you may please have a seat."

Cat motions her own right hand out at Kara and points to the couch that is nearest her desk.

Kara takes a seat there and crosses her legs in Cat's direction. "Thank you, Miss Grant."

Cat takes a quick up and down cursory glance over at Kara, who wears a slightly off white pants suit with a light purple button up dress shirt underneath and dark purple flats, and catches Kara half smile before she looks back down at the paper in her hand, Kara's resume. She begins their interview time without looking up again.

"I _once_ knew another _Keira_."

Kara politely attempts to correct her, "With all due respect, Miss Grant, my first name is actually pronounced like car with it's hard C sound coupled with the sound ah after it, so  _Car-ah._ "

Cat keeps talking over Kara's attempt at correction, "She had bolder facial features, lighter hair, no glasses with the deepest, starry blue eyes that I have ever seen. _You_ , however, are, clearly, _not_   _her_."

Cat stops and looks over at Kara who deeply swallows in an audible gulp after she hears this slightly unexpected and somewhat harsh comment from Cat about herself now versus her younger self. Inwardly, Kara half cringes and half muffles giggles from spilling out because Cat maybe doesn't truly recognize her. It's not completely surprising if she doesn't. It is almost  _18 years_  now since they have last seen each other.

Cat looks away again and continues, "Anyways, forget about that, it says here you went to Metropolis University for undergraduate and graduate school and majored in Journalism, just like I, myself, did. You were the general editor of the University Daily Star paper for 3 years as well. That alone is very impressive, but I noticed based on these years listed here and your date of birth on your passport that you didn't finish school until you were what, 27? That's a bit late. I finished graduate school at 21. Then, I started working for the Daily Planet right away."

Kara swallows hard again and deeply breathes in and out before she answers Cat's intrusive, but important question with as much confidence as she can muster up, "Oh, well, uhh, I didn't actually start college in Metropolis until I was 21 because I needed to deal with a serious, but private personal matter for a few years beforehand."

She is not about to tell,  _the Cat Grant,_  who is now her potential new employer that she took time off to have and take care of her two children. Nor will she reveal that she attended National City University for only one semester when she was 18.

An appeased Cat responds, "Ahh, Yes, I see. I suppose that's fine then. As a professional courtesy, I will not ask you about whatever that personal matter was. As I look over the rest of your resume, your entire work background _fascinates_ me. I see you were first employed by my own former boss and now journalistic colleague and rival Perry White at the Daily Planet as an intern in general article research during graduate school and for 3 years afterwards as an event features writer?"

Kara affirmatively nods. "Yes, but I believe you only worked for Mr. White for two years before you very ambitiously joined up with Nicholas Willis' media conglomerate and eventually very admirably turned it into CatCo as it is now, Miss Grant?"

Cat sighs, but then lightly smiles. "Brazen for you to bring up what you know of the beginnings of my own career. As you should also know, Mr. Willis met with an unfortunately untimely end. I made the best of that situation as both his professional business partner and the mother of his only actual heir. Anyways, Miss Kent may I presume from your last name that you are related to my old friend and other journalistic colleague, Clark Kent?"

Kara had heard Cat had a son, but she just didn't know how old he was and she didn't realize Cat's son was Nicholas' child too. Kara is somewhat surprised Cat didn't call him her former husband, but Mr. Willis.

Kara affirmatively nods her head again at Cat's question about Clark. " _Yes._ He is my older cousin."

Cat speaks up, "He's a smart reporter with good instincts. However, I just never understood how his particular brand of high intelligence could ever lead him to date and, ultimately, marry the incorrigible Lois Lane."

Kara sternly interjects, "Miss Grant, I would rather not discuss my cousin's _personal business_ with you during our interview that is supposed to focus on what _I, myself,_ can bring to your newsroom table."

Cat snaps back, " _Brazen_. I'm still quite certain he's told you plenty of old war stories about me being a wretched battle axe of a woman."

Kara vehemently rebuffs that insinuation, " _NO_ , _of course not!_ "

Cat amusedly counters Kara's defense of Clark, "It's okay, Keira, I'm known around town and _by town_ I mean both nationally and internationally in different news circles as the top female alpha wolf of journalists with _more bite than bark_."

Kara laughs with Cat now about her statement not at her and adds, "Well, he may have recounted to me a story or two about both your feistiness and steadfast determination to get at the truth. Yet, I believe there is _much more bark to you than bite_ , Miss Grant."

Right as Kara finishes that line of extremely blatant kissing up to Cat, Miss Teschmacher returns with Cat's hot latte.

Cat grabs it, takes a rather large sip with no care that it might burn her tongue and continues, "Moving on from all of that, I see that you worked for the _London Daily Gazette_ tracking business matters and different crime stories across Europe during the last 5 years. Why the sudden burning desire to move back stateside with our more _run of the mill_ reporting work here?"

Kara takes a moment to collect her thoughts before she starts, "As to why I, specifically, want to work stateside again, both my sister and my foster mother live right here in National City so this location for work very conveniently brings me much closer to them. In terms of why, I particularly, want to work for CatCo, I greatly appreciate how CatCo Worldwide Media Group is leading the way on reporting fairly and neutrally on alien and other immigrant rights. By this I mean both rights for aliens from other planets and rights for immigrants to the United States from other countries. We live in tumultuous times right now under our new President. All civil rights need to be better established and protected for all persons living in this country. There is nothing _run of the mill_ about reporting on equal rightsmatters."

Cat ponders Kara's answers for a few minutes before she speaks up, " _Not quite_ the answers I expected to hear from you. Still, they are both _bold and fresh and I like them_. I just hope you are more than just another _Superman fangirl_. Superman is certainly a very genuine hero with a heart of gold, but not all aliens have the same heroic nature and disposition to help humanity. The truth needs to be told about aliens whether good or bad from, just as you noted before that we do here, a fair and neutral perspective and standpoint. As for the immigrants from other countries question, yes, we do need to help get their stories out and help them legally earn protections as they move here and acclimate into their new lives here."

Cat quickly pauses before she adds, "I think this interview is now _complete_. Congratulations you have a new job, Miss Kent, as a leading journalist here at CatCo! You should report to Human Resources to complete your new hire paperwork and then meet with my newsroom's managing editor, Snapper Carr, here in this building tomorrow morning at 8am sharp in the reporting bullpen located on the 40th floor. Make sure to get a security badge downstairs after going to Human Resources."

Just as Cat finishes talking, Kara stands up to leave as Carter and Clarissa burst into the room both yelling excitedly, "Mom, mom!"

Kara takes one look at the two of them, softly whispers, " _Oh_ _Rao!_ " and immediately faints and falls to the floor on the carpet in Cat's office.

 

* * *

 

**First Week of Fall Semester1999   National City University  
**

An overly excited 18 year old Kara Danvers approaches the freshman orientation check-in table in the student center for the last names that begin with the letters A-D.

A bright-green eyed blonde with short curly hair greets her, "Welcome to National City University! Hi, I'm Carolyn Grant, but all my family and friends call me Lynn. What is your name?"

Kara very cheerfully answers, "Hi, I'm Kara Danvers, I'm from Midvale."

"Oh, sweet! I'm originally from Metropolis."

"Cool, my cousin lives there!"

Lynn looks down at the list of students in the folder on the table and excitedly exclaims, "Oh, yes, I remember seeing your name earlier, Kara. You are another new Journalism major. Welcome to the wolf pack. You are living in Woodward Hall on the 5th floor room 509. That's my floor, I'm your Resident Assistant or RA. I'm in room 501. Most of the journalism and other media major students live in our hall."

Kara enthusiastically replies, "Oh, that's so awesome! So you must be an upperclassmen since you are my RA?"

"Yeah, I'm a senior, but don't worry. I'm not one of those snobby girls who doesn't associate with younger students. I'm friends with most people I meet."

"Great! My sister Alex is a senior too. I'm the same way. I try to either befriend or at least get along with everyone I meet."

Lynn hands Kara a folder with her building key card, room key, class schedule and campus map and offers, "Don't be shy about knocking on my door with any questions!"

"Thank you, Lynn! See you later."

Kara brightly smiles at her as they both wave their goodbyes.

Kara jogs back to Eliza's car to meet her and Alex and go unload her things to take up to her room in Woodward Hall.

On the following Wednesday morning at 8am, Kara sees 27 year old, Cat Grant, in person, for the first time in her life. But, Cat introduces herself as Professor Catherine Willis the teacher for the  _Journalism 101_ course. She is also co-chair of the Journalism department.

Kara develops a bit of both a hero crush and a romantic crush on Professor Willis from the first moment she lays eyes on her. During the first lecture she hears Professor Willis give with her serene, yet stern voice, butterflies of delight and nervousness roll around in Kara's stomach.

On Friday night that same week, Kara stands in front of Lynn's door and waits for her to answer her knock because they are supposed to meet for a friendly dinner.

Professor Willis stealthily slides up besides Kara and asks, "It's _Keh_... _Keira_ , right?"

Kara looks at her and nervously stutters out, "Oh, uh, umm, sure, yeah, _Professor Willis_. That's right."

She's too stunned to correct her Professor, who she realizes in class the other day will just call students whatever she wants to call them. 

Just then Lynn opens her door, "Knock it off, Cat! Her name is _Kara_ , not Keira. What are you doing here anyways, big sis?"

An unamused Cat rolls her eyes and responds, " _No, you didn't_! _Yes, you did_! Lynn, you _forgot_ about our monthly dinner with mother _tonight_?!?"

Lynn answers, "Oh shoot! I did forget. I got distracted as I promised Kara I would take her to the best pizza joint around. Can't you just face _her majesty of bitterness_ alone tonight?"

Cat counter suggests, "Well, Lynn, Why don't you just bring your _little friend_ along with us? Hmm, that is if you can find a better outfit for her to wear than this skimpy black mesh tank, ripped jeans and what are _those_ grimy looking things? Dirty Converse running shoes? _Seriously_?"

Lynn answers, "Okay, just give us 5-10 minutes _tops_."

She pulls Kara into her room and slams the door in Cat's face. Inside the room, Kara excitedly exclaims, "Oh my word! Totes confirmed Professor Willis is really _the_ _Cat Grant_. She's like the biggest  _Rock Star_  of all female journalists right now. I can't believe she's teaching here!"

Lynn covers Kara's mouth, " _Oh, no!_ _Just stop it right there!_  You are not going to fangirl all over my big sister over dinner tonight with our _crazy mother_! Now, let me just find something _fabulous_ for both of us to wear already."

As she patiently stands outside her sister's closed dorm room  door, Cat still manages to overhear most of the girls' conversation. She heartily laughs and thinks to herself that this is going to be one _super_ _fun_ night.


	2. Sherry Baby

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In both 1999 and 2017, Riding in cars/the same car really with girls and boys. We also find out why Kara fainted in the present.

 

* * *

 

 **Same Friday Night in September 1999  National City University**

Lynn opens her dorm room door and Kara steps out first. Kara now wears a light yellow chiffon blouse paired with a black pleated plaid skirt and black slipper flats. She holds a short brown leather jacket neatly folded over her left shoulder.

Cat peruses her outfit up and down and is speechless for a moment before she coughs up a few surprise compliments, "Well done, Lynn. Keira looks a bit more like a designer bumblebee now then a bumbling rock star groupie."

Lynn lightly laughs and smirks at Kara and whispers in her ear, "I think she heard you _swooning_ before!"

Kara blushes and just holds her head down as she quietly giggles.

As she stares over at her sister's outfit, Cat continues, "But, oh dear, why did you have to ruin things and dress like a lady bug, Lynn? Mother is going to have quite the laugh if she catches on that you both look a bit like insects."

Lynn loudly laughs now before she answers Cat, "Let her. She needs to lighten up. Still, Cat, you kind of look like death's mistress so you will probably keep mother in a dark mood anyways."

Cat rolls her eyes before she responds, "Touché."

Lynn wears long black fitted slacks with little red polka dots on them, a deep red short sleeve blouse with a black vest over it with black high heels to top off the look and match her height up with Kara's. Cat, herself, wears a sheer black hip hugging short dress with a thin white leather belt smoothly wrapped along her thin waistline, dark black pantyhose and shiny black stiletto heels. She also wears a long black leather jacket over the whole ensemble with black aviator sunglasses perched atop her head like she's a movie star.

As they start to walk out of the dorm, Lynn asks Cat, "So did our _darling_   _battering_ _ram_ of a mum actually send her driver over or are we taking _Sherry?"_

Kara questions, "Who's _Sherry_?"

Lynn smugly answers, "Cat's _baby_."

A confused Kara questions Cat now, "Do you have a _baby daughter_? How would _she_ drive us anywhere?"

Cat hysterically laughs, "Oh, please! With _this figure_?!? Surely, you must be joking. No, no children for me!"

Lynn interjects, " _Sherry_ is Cat's Cherry red 1982 Corvette Convertible."

Kara's jaw drops, "Oh Rao! I mean, Oh wow! That's a real  _classic_!"

Lynn agrees, "Yes, it is! And, Cat won't let anyone else besides herself drive it. But, it will be fun for you to at least get a ride inside her tonight."

Cat laughs again as she brazenly adds, "Not to be confused with the kind of _wild ride_ Lynn here would like to take you on inside _elsewhere_. But, yes, we are taking _Sherry_ out for a spin tonight."

Of course Kara looks thoroughly confused once again.

Lynn laughs a little herself before she tells Kara, "Never you mind the strange things my sister says tonight, apparently, starting right now."

Next, Lynn addresses Cat, "Come on, big sis, let's go introduce this _young_ _lady_ to your _old_ _classic_."

Cat protests, "Hey, don't you dare call my still _beautiful_ and _youthful_ _Sherry_ baby any foul names! Or you can walk to and from the restaurant."

Lynn raises her arms and hands up high and seemingly pulls back from her jestering, "Okay. I'm sorry. I will _surrender_ to your wishes, big sis."

Still, Lynn whispers in Kara's ear again, "Don't you think my sister is the kind of _old_ and _classic_ woman you want to take for a spin on a _special_ _ride?_ "

Kara quietly gasps and lightly punches Lynn's shoulder.

Lynn yelps out, "Ouch!"

Kara just now gets Cat's sexual joke from earlier and she blushes profusely. She doesn't know how she is going to handle having dinner with two beautiful and wiley Grant women at the same time. Maybe their mother will help Kara keep her currently all over the place emotions in check.

Cat misses their whispered conversation as she unlocks and carefully lowers the top down on _Sherry_.

Cat turns to Kara and Lynn and announces, "Hop on in ladies! Time to get _this_ _show_ on the road!"

Lynn offers Kara, "Ladies choice, front seat or back?"

Kara less than gracefully falls more than climbs into the back seat. Lynn sits shotgun next to Cat. Cat smirks and laughs at both girls and slides her sunglasses off the top of her head down to cover her eyes and starts to rev _Sherry_ up. Lynn slides a cassette tape into the customized cassette tape deck and the song _Sherry Baby_ by _Frankie_ _Valli_ _and_ _the_ _Four_ _Seasons_ starts playing.

Cat snickers, "Just had to give her the _full_ _experience_ already didn't you?"

Lynn leans over to Cat and quietly tells her, "If only I really could."

Cat coughs and chokes on air and then can't stop laughing at that last comment of Lynn's. After she calms a little, she revs her engine up, properly shifts _Sherry_ into gear and starts the short drive over to the restaurant.

When the _Sherry_ _Baby_ song finishes playing, Kara excitedly exclaims, "This is a really, really beautiful car! Thanks for inviting me as the song says to  _come_ _out_ _tonight_!"

Lynn and Cat share snickers that confuse Kara again before Cat replies, "Yes, _my_ _Sherry_ or _my_ _Mon Cherie_ as I call her sometimes is one of the _less_ ostentatious wedding gifts my husband gave me."

Kara thinks aloud without realizing it, "Oh, right. You're _married_ , Professor Willis."

Cat and Lynn curiously glance at each other, but don't say anything back to Kara.

 

* * *

 

**First Thursday in March 2017 CatCo**

As soon as Kara hits the carpeted floor in Cat's office, Cat calmly barks orders out to Carter and Clarissa, "Kids, please check if she is breathing okay. If so, please pick Miss K here up and lay her on her side so she faces outwards on the couch. She didn't eat or drink anything while she was here so she should neither choke nor vomit, but she should be positioned that way just in case. Oh and Carter please go grab a small waste basket from one of those _plebeians'_ desks outside of my office. Bring it in here next to the couch."

 

As Carter opens the door to grab a waste basket in response to his mother's commands, Cat yells out into the outer office area, "Miss Teschmacher, please call my private doctor and tell him this is an _absolute_ _emergency_ and he better get here within 10 minutes or he's off the CatCo payroll _forever_."

 

Cat paces around the room and talks aloud to herself while they wait for her private physician to arrive to check on Kara, "Great! The first halfway competent journalist/reporter I have interviewed in years just collapses at the end of the interview. I'm really not that tough to deal with, _am_ _I?_ This is just a lawsuit waiting to happen. I can't believe I didn't even offer her water during the interview."

 

Clarissa walks up to Cat and tells her, "Mom, it's really not your fault. When Carter and I just barged in here I think we scared her."

 

Cat reluctantly agrees, "Perhaps, you are right. You kids need to be more careful around here. Can you please explain to me why you were both so overly _bouncing_ _off_ _the_ _walls_ excited?"

 

Clarissa enthusiastically answers, "Oh, mom, we met two of the coolest new kids at school today! Their names are Cameron and Callie and they are really awesome. Still, it was strange to meet them too because they _kind_ _of_ _look_ _like_ _us._ Their hair and eye colors are different than ours, but we have other really similar features. They also said some _weird_ _phrases_ that Cameron and I have used before. Cameron likes Science like Carter does and Callie enjoys Literature and History best like I do. Anyways, we wanted to ask you if they can come to dinner at the house tonight?"

 

Cat answers, "Sure, that's fine, honey. You and Carter text your new friends and let them know our address and let us say they can come by around 6:30pm? I think I may even invite _Keira_ here over for dinner now as well as long as she is okay after my doctor checks up on her. Oh, and if these kids all eat a lot like you and your brother do then we need to stop off at the market on the way home to buy some more taco shells, veggies, chicken and ground beef."

 

With only two minutes to spare from the 10 minutes Cat requested him to arrive within, Dr. Stephen Daniels steps into Cat's office and Cat directs him to the still passed out Kara on her office couch. He checks her pulse and finds that it is normal. He takes her glasses off and feels her forehead and cheeks. While her cheeks are a bit flushed, he can tell she doesn't have a fever. He wipes her brow with wet paper towels. Next, he tells Cat that Kara needs water to drink. Carter puts the small waste basket he still holds in his hands down before he goes to grab either a glass or a bottle of water.

 

The doctor pulls out smelling salts from his first aid bag. Kara startles awake, sits up and confusedly asks, " _Where am I? Where are my glasses? What's going on?_ "

 

Standing behind the doctor in front of the couch, both Cat and Clarissa stare over at the deep blue color of Kara's eyes before she can pull her glasses back on. Kara remembers where she is once she properly puts her glasses back on.

 

While she still stares directly at Kara, Clarissa says, "Your eyes are a lot like mine and my brother's eyes. They are like the _bluest ocean crystallized_ is how mom describes the color."

 

Kara looks at Cat and then Clarissa and over at Carter who stands by the door with a water glass before she responds, "Yes, you are right. She's right too, _your_ _mom._ I think your eyes are a little lighter and even brighter than mine."

 

Cat quietly whispers aloud to nobody in particular, "Age softens beauty."

 

Kara catches what she whispers and wonders if Cat actually does _recognize_ her. Maybe, just in her subconscious mind, she does. Kara also notices how the green in Cat's eyes is really close to the same shade as that of her own son's eyes.

 

At that very same moment as Cat speaks in her veiled whisper, Kara's phone rings in her purse. She reaches for her purse which is on the floor by the couch and takes her phone out.

 

She checks the caller ID and she says to Cat, "Excuse me, this is important. Do you mind if I take this?"

 

Cat insists, "By all means, please, go ahead!"

 

Kara hits the answer button. "Hi, darling. Yes, of course. I will see you at home by 9pm then? Good, love you, bye."

 

Cat can't make out either who is on the other end or what all is actually said, but she notices the other voice sounds feminine. Also, Cat, clearly, hears Kara say _darling_ and _love_ _you_. But, she's not jealous _is_ _she_ of this unknown person who holds Kara's affections? She doesn't have a crush on her newest hire already, _does_ _she?_

 

Anyways, its time for Cat to make her own strange play for more of Kara's time tonight. Cat offers, "It sounds like maybe you are free for dinner? If so, you are most welcome to join my family tonight. Plus, I feel _terrible_ that you fainted in my office after our successful interview. Are you okay? Did you not eat today? Carter bring _Keira_ that water now."

 

Kara sips the water from the glass Carter hands her and replies, "Thank you for the _generous_ offer, Miss Grant. I am feeling better now. I ate only a very light lunch today. I should have had more water to drink before I came in to interview with you. I do not want to intrude on a private family dinner though."

 

Cat counters, "Oh no. it's no intrusion at all. The kids invited some friends over as well. It's all usually very informal when we eat in as a family. It's taco Thursday tonight since I'm not ever home early on Tuesdays when other people traditionally hold taco nights."

 

Feeling as though Cat will not take no for an answer, Kara replies, "I would be both _delighted_ and _honored_ to join you and your family in your home for dinner tonight."

 

Cat laughs, "Oh, knock it off! You make it sound as though you intend to dine with the _Queen_ _of_ _England_. I'm just as much a homebody with my family as anyone else."

 

"Well, you are still the _Queen_ _of_ _All_ _Media_ at home and at work."

 

Cat answers, "Touché, I suppose. _Keira_ after that fainting spell just now, I don't want you to report to Human Resources and building security until tomorrow morning. You can then check in with Mr. Carr afterwards, but before 10am."

 

Kara responds, "Yes, Thank you again, Miss. Grant! I see I'm getting more of the _bark_ than the _bite_ today."

 

The kids look at each other confused.

 

Cat laughs again and snaps back jokingly, "Don't always expect such _lax_ treatment!"

 

The kids like this woman who seems to make their mom happy already before even her first actual day of work. They know this is a major accomplishment when some of their mother's employees never make it onto her good side.

 

Cat tells Kara and her kids, "Let me just finish a few things here and we can all leave soon. Kara, I hope you don't mind if we stop at a market on the way back to my place for some extra food? I didn't know until right after you fainted that the kids wanted to invite friends home tonight."

 

"Oh, that's not an issue, I don't mind at all."

 

Carter asks Cat, "Mom can we pretty please leave our jeep here and drive the convertible home tonight?"

 

"Carter, a Grant does not beg!"

 

Carter protests, "The convertible will make such a nice impression on Miss K."

 

Cat rolls her eyes, but relents, "Fine, here are the keys to take the cover off plus the actual car keys. Please wait until we get there to start the car up. You can drive to the store and your sister can drive home from there, but I will be in the passenger seat up front to monitor the entire time, hear me?"

 

Carter jokingly salutes Cat, "Aye! Aye! Captain! I mean Yes, Yes, Mom! "

 

When Cat and Kara enter the garage and step up to get into Cat's car, Kara's eyes go wide. She doesn't realize it when she says, "Oh Rao, it's _Sherry_!" out loud.

 

Carter catches her words and gives her a quizzical look as he asks, "Wait, how did you know my mom calls this particular car baby of hers _Sherry_ and what was that other weird word you just said? I think you said it upstairs before you fainted. Did mom tell you about her _special_ _car_ _baby_ already?"

 

Kara covers, "Oh, no she didn't tell me. I said oh wow, upstairs, and, just now oh wow, cherry like cherry red for the color of the car."

 

Cat gives Kara a curious stare. Carter doesn't quite believe Kara.

 

"Hmm, okay, but, yeah this is _Sherry_. She was a gift to my mom from my dad. But, he died before I was born."

 

"Oh, Carter! I'm so sorry to hear that."

 

"It's okay. It's not like I ever even knew him. I've always had mom though and Clarissa."

 

Soon they all get in the car and Cat tells Carter, "Please take it easy on my _Sherry_ baby."

 

Carter snickers back at Cat, "Of course, mom. Just like always! _Relax!_ "

 

Kara notices the singular pronouns Carter uses to describe his connection to his dad and wonders if Clarissa is adopted or something. She still looks a bit like Carter. They both have dirty blonde hair and blue eyes much like her own. The reason why Kara fainted earlier wasn't about not having enough food or water today, but she was a bit shocked by how much Carter and Clarissa look like her own children with different hair and eye colors.

 

She always thought her high school ex was the father of her own children, but other things happened back then and she is an alien. Maybe all these children have two mothers each? She needs to find out about Clarissa and she wonders about Carolyn. Oh Rao, maybe Carolyn/Lynn is Clarissa's other mother? She didn't know about Carter and Clarissa's existence until today. Now, her mind is rapidly spinning around in wild circles. She did know about _Sherry_ baby. She just never thought she would see this _old_ _classic_ again after that last wild weekend driving up the California coast with Cat and Lynn almost 18 years ago.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be dinner with different Grants past and present. Points to anyone who can guess what character on what 80s tv show's car inspired my thoughts for Cat's Sherry baby. It's not the same make or model, but is almost the same color with a similar design look.


	3. Dinners with Different Grants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long everybody! It's probably going to be two weeks before the next chapter as well. The second half of the chapter is shorter basically because more character development for all the kids in this chapter in the present top part.
> 
> Slight trigger warning: Mild Homophobia issues mentioned in connection to Cat's mother and her past life circumstances 
> 
> Present Time Dinner - Kara eats with Cat, Carter and Clarissa Grant. Kara's children Cameron (Cam) and Callie (CJ) Kent join them  
> Kara's kids always wear glasses, Cat's kids don't.
> 
> Flashback Dinner - The ladies drive to the National City Marina Restaurant district and Kara attempts to dine at a fancy restaurant with Cat, Lynn (Carolyn) and Katherine Grant. Plans turn out a bit altered in the end.

* * *

 

**First Thursday Night in March  2017** **Driving to / Dining in at Cat's Waterfront Home**

After leaving CatCo, Carter drives the ladies with him to a local grocery store. Cat and Carter both go inside to pick up more food for dinner. Meanwhile, Clarissa stays in the car with Kara. Clarissa moves into the front driver's seat because her mom promised her she can drive home from here. Kara stays seated in the back.

Clarissa is very forward and questions Kara, "I think you might _like_ like my mom? Maybe you have a _crush?_ "

Kara hesitantly answers, "Oh, what? Umm, no, definitely not! I have a _strictly_ _professional_  relationship with your mom. What would make you think otherwise?"

Clarissa pushes back, "Well, you didn't have to say yes to her about coming over tonight, but you did."

"I didn't want to disappoint my brand new boss and make her think I wasn't open to accepting her hospitality before my first actual day of work."

"Yes, that's an understandable reason to accept a dinner invitation. It also sounded like your plans got cancelled."

Kara smirks at Clarissa and amusingly answers, "Oh, how _perceptive_ you are! Yes, they did."

Clarissa mischievously smirks right back at her, "My mom was paying attention to your call too. She looked like she was _disappointed_ when it sounded like maybe you might have a _girlfriend_?"

"Oh, uhh, no! I'm  _single_ as a _Pringle!_ I'm not really dating anyone right now."

Clarissa continues, "Huh, how about that? Okay, cool! And, it seems you don't want to reveal your gender preferences for who you date. That's fair. You did make it sound ambiguous with the word 'anyone.' You should know my mom's never invited anyone from work to our home for a family dinner night."

Kara shrugs. "Well, okay, umm, as curious as that may be, I think she extended the invite only because I fainted in her office today."

Clarissa agrees, "Yeah, you know that's gotta be it. Forget I said anything. Don't _snitch_ to my mom on me!"

"Ha! I would _never_. Isn't that phrase something people who kill people say? I really don't think you could hurt a fly."

Clarissa snaps back, "Hey, I'm Cat Grant's daughter. I most definitely could _hurt_ a fly. My brother and I together have helped get seven of our mom's last ten assistants fired for the equivalent of sneezing in the wrong direction. Six of them left in streaming tears and lucky number seven peed his pants."

Kara loudly laughs, "Okay, that does sound a bit _ruthless!_ I believe you. You could definitely hurt more than a fly. Anyways, since you were so direct with asking me a rather personal question, can I ask you a direct, personal question as well?"

"Sure, shoot! Well, don't really shoot, but I'm game. Ask away!"

"So, I heard Carter mention his father who died like it was personal for him _only_ and _not_ for you? Do you have different fathers?"

Clarissa stops to think for a moment.

"Oh, wow that is quite a bit forward and a real heavy hitting question to ask up front. Well, okay, I'll bite. Carter's mom is also my mom in every way that counts. She's loved me and taken care of me all of my life. But, my biological mom was Cat's little sister Carolyn or Lynn as Cat called her. She died when I was three, but we lived with Aunt Cat, now, my mom, Cat, since I was born. She's always been in my life and I in hers."

Kara emphathetically responds, "Oh, sweetie, I'm so, so sorry! I didn't know! You and poor Carter both lost parents when you were so young."

"Don't worry about it. While I wish that, yes, I could know my biological mother a little sometimes I was so young when she died. Cat has always been my mom and the only mother I need."

Kara adds, "She must be an amazing mother and such a strong woman to have raised two wonderful teens all on her own."

Clarissa agrees, "Oh, yeah, my mom, Cat, did it all alone for sure. She's dated before, but nothing serious. My grandmother says that her and my biological mom were both in love with the same young woman once a long time ago. But, it didn't work out for either one of them or the other woman in the end.

Kara let's out a furious fit of fake coughs that briefly interrupt Clarissa's train of thought, before she adds, "Grandmother says it never could have worked out for my mom, Cat, as she couldn't have been openly bisexual and run a media empire as one of the first women in such a high ranking position in the media field."

"Wow, your grandmother sounds like a real horrid piece of work. And, that's a Romeo and Juliet level tragic story with a third wheel thrown in about your moms and that other woman."

It's weird for Kara, eighteen years later, to both hear about and comment on her own past love life with a girl who is a daughter to both of the women in different ways, a girl who may even be her own daughter. She also knows how awful Katherine Grant was in the past.

After a few moments lost in her own thoughts, Kara asks Clarissa another direct question, "What about your own father?"

"Oh, I never knew my biological father. My mom now, Cat, said my other mom, Carolyn, never told her who he was. My mom Cat assumed he was some meaningless one night stand that Carolyn had after things didn't work out with that woman they both cared for. But, my mom, Cat, told me when I asked a few years ago the whole thing was really odd because her sister Carolyn never dated guys and never expressed attraction to them. It's okay that I don't know my dad. I have had an amazing family life with my brother Carter and my mom Cat. Our mom Cat raised Carter and I on her own and together as a family in the end. The three of us are our own wolfpack of sorts. We look out for and take care of each other."

Kara readily agrees, "Yes, I suppose you are. You seem to make a great team!"

A few minutes later, Carter and Cat return to the car with a cart full of groceries. Kara gets out of the backseat and offers, "I'm here, let me help you both out with those bags."

She picks up four out of the six heavy bags without thinking about the weight and lifts them into the car trunk.

Cat and Carter stare wide-eyed at Kara and her actions as she quickly lifts and deposits the bags in the car's trunk.

An awestruck Carter says, "Wow. You are mighty strong!"

Kara humbly answers, "Oh, It's only because I lift weights every day...at the gym."

Carter responds, "That's so cool! Maybe you could show me how to do that sometime at the CatCo employee and family gym. I would like to bulk up more in muscle before I go to college and start to deal with the freshman fifteen weight gain of bad weight."

Kara suggests, "Oh, umm, maybe we could? If your mom says it's okay? Or if she joins us?"

Cat chimes in, "Maybe. We will see, Carter."

Just the thought of seeing this Kara, her newest employee, in workout clothes pulling her clearly muscular arms up to lift weights is making Cat both blush a little and sweat under her collar. Thankfully, no one seems to notice this. No, she shouldn't be thinking about things, like this, about this Kara, not at all.

After a brief spaced out moment, Cat continues, "Anyways, we need to get going back to the house before your new friends get there ahead of us."

Carter answers, "Yes, mom. You are right. Time to get going."

He turns to Kara and adds, "Clarissa has a lead foot so we will get there way before our new friends do. And, I get to ride in the backseat with you, Kara so we can talk a bit more."

Both Kara and Carter smile at each other as they are both excited about the chance to connect more. They talk about how much weight Kara can actually lift. She doesn't exactly give the truest answer when she says close to double her actual body weight. Kara also tells Carter what foods are good to eat to build muscle up versus just feeding and growing fat cells. They do end up arriving very quickly to Cat's beach house about two miles south from the National City Marina.

They all get out of the car and Kara and Carter both lift the groceries inside even as Cat protests, "Kara, please don't! You fainted earlier. I don't want you passing out again outside or inside my house. That would be quite a spectacle."

"Oh, Miss Grant, please, I'm fine. No worries! I won't faint here."

At least, in her head, Kara hopes she won't be triggered by something that shocks her again enough to faint at Cat's house.

After they all get inside and Carter and Kara put the groceries down, Cat insists Kara sit at the kitchen island bar while she unpacks and prepares the food.

A few minutes later, the doorbell rings. Carter answers the door and happily welcomes their friends, "Hey Cam! Hey CJ! Come on in!"

His sister Clarissa joins him at the doorway and quickly runs off with CJ to her room before Cat and Kara can even turn their heads to see what's going on.

Cat murmurs to herself, but Kara overheard, "Just girls being girls."

Carter and Clarissa's friends are Cameron/Cam and Callie/CJ Kent. Cam steps inside and is completely surprised when he sees his mother, Kara, sitting at a stool along the bar island in Carter's family kitchen with a woman standing in front of her leaning over the other side of the island unpacking grocery shopping bags. She must be Carter's mom.

He briefly looks at the woman's eyes and he sees something curious and familiar. Carter's mom shares what seems to be the same deep shade of green eye color with him. Cameron wears glasses just as his mother and his sister do so Carter's mother probably won't notice what he does about their eyes so easily. Anyways, he turns from this fleeting thought in his head back to his mother being here.

Kara gasps in surprise when her son bear hugs her from behind.

"Hey, Ma! You're here, too?"

Kara jumps up out of her seat a little in shock and pushes Cameron's arms off of her before she turns and sees him.

"Oh Rr-woah, Cameron you scared me!"

"Sorry, Ma! I didn't know I would see you here tonight."

"Likewise, well, it's a nice surprise even though you scared me a bit, you little goof!"

"Sorry, Ma!"

Kara explains why she's here, "Well, it's a funny thing, you see, Carter's mom, Miss Grant is my new boss. After our interview earlier, she invited me for dinner. She said her children had friends coming over. I just didn't realize it was you and your sister even though your sister called and said you were both going to a friends' house for dinner."

Right then, Cat realizes Kara called her own daughter, _darling_ and said _love_ _you_ to her, not a random female nor romantic love interest.

Cam excitedly responds, "Oh great! So you got the new job? We get to stay here in National City permanently with Aunt Alex and Nonna Eliza?!?

Kara looks at him, glides her hand through the top of his curly dirty blonde hair and gleefully answers, "Yes, Yes, we do, kiddo!"

Cam fake cringes backwards, "Mom, no weird family PDA stuff in front of my friends!"

Kara replies, "Sorry, honey. No more I promise."

She winks at Cam and he nods back.

Carter chimes in now, "Oh, wow. This is your mother? She's so young. Our mother only called her _Keira_ and _Miss_ _K_ so I didn't realize her last name was Kent like yours."

Cat interjects now, "Carter it is rude to comment on a woman's age whether young or old."

Kara offers, "It's okay, Miss Grant. I was really young when I had them. It's why I drop...uh...started college late."

Cat responds with a basically rhetorical question, "So, Keira, wow, how about that? You have two older teenagers just like I do?

Before Kara can actually respond, Clarissa and CJ walk back in the room and CJ interrupts, "Oh, umm, sorry, Miss Grant, I mean no disrespect, but our mother's name is actually Kara. It's pronounced like car with a hard K sound and an aah sound after at the end. And my name is Callie, but everyone calls me CJ. My brother is Cameron and everyone calls him Cam. Thank you for allowing Clarissa and Carter to invite us over for dinner!"

Cat addresses the young lady who challenges her, "Oh, CJ, huh? A few people used to call me CJ a long time ago, but you can stick with Miss Grant. You are welcome for the invite and hospitality. Further, that was very brazen of you young lady to call me out on the way I mispronounced your mother's name. She didn't even call me out on that earlier during her interview."

Kara thinks about how she actually did try to instruct Cat on her name's proper pronunciation, but Cat perhaps purposely ignored her.

CJ laughs. "Yeah, sounds like mom. She can be shy when she's nervous and not correct people. An interview with you, the Queen of All media, surely made her ultra-nervous."

Cat quirks an eyebrow at a now blushing Kara. "Oh Really? Well, Kar-a managed to survive the interview just fine. At least until afterwards."

CJ jumps in, "Wait, what happened afterwards?"

Before Cat says anything else, Clarissa answers, "Carter and I came running in the room and your mom took one look at us and she fainted."

CJ looks at Kara. "Oh, no! Mom, are you okay?"

Kara nods as she answers, "Yes, while it was a bit embarrassing at the time, I'm fine. I didn't eat enough or drink enough water today because of my nerves." She isn't going to tell her own kids she fainted because Cat's kids look like them quite a bit even with their different eye and hair color.

CJ walks up to hug her mom. "I'm so glad you are okay! And that you got the new job!

Kara smiles. "Thank you, honey."

Cat finishes what she wanted to say before, "Anyways, CJ and Kara please accept my apologies. CJ, I will call your mother, Kara, while she is here tonight and publicly address her as Miss Kent."

In her own head, Kara doubts Cat will keep to either pronouncing her first name correctly or just calling her by her last name while at the CatCo office.

Still, Kara responds, "Thank you, Miss Grant."

Cat says, "Nope, that won't do. In my home, you can call me Cat."

Kara nervously answers, "Okay, Miss, umm, err sorry, I mean, Cat."

At this point, Cat and Kara tell the kids to all go sit and talk, watch tv or play games amongst themselves in either the living room or their own rooms. As Cat starts to prepare food to cook for everyone, she drifts into deep thoughts in her head of long past memories of her younger days. Just saying the name Kara correctly out loud again, herself, was difficult even after all this time. Her sister was the last one who corrected her about another Kara's name many years ago. It was strange too that Callie/CJ's voice slightly echoed and resembled Carolyn's in Cat's mind.

The last time Cat said that name, _Kara_ , correctly out loud, herself, she was chasing a very beautiful, but also very young, very naive, shimmery blonde-haired like the sun and starry blue-eyed girl out of her bedroom, her house and her life. There was no way for things to work out with them long term. She couldn't _seriously_ become romantically attached to a literal teenager, who was also one of her college students closer in age to Cat's younger sister, Carolyn, who also had feelings for Kara.

Their possible budding romantic relationship didn't stand a chance back then. Not when Cat was poised to take over a worldwide media empire within days of what happened between her and Kara, at least on the physical level. It was just too scandalous. Especially, when her husband had just so recently died as well. People would have thought she engaged in this torrid affair with her student beforehand and drove him away from her towards his death. But, no, it was really her husband's own straying ways and affairs that eventually led to his death.

Kara notices the sharp look of discomfort in Cat's face and her eyebrows wrinkle as she slices up vegetables for the tacos and asks, "Hey, Cat, Are you okay? Can I help you with anything?"

Cat answers, "Oh, I'm very well, thank you! I was just thinking I can use some help with all this food to put together for our four hungry teenagers and us. Do you want to clean and season the beef and chicken while I chop veggies?"

"Sure thing, Miss...uhh...err...sorry, Cat."

Cat slightly stabs the the side of one of her fingers and drops the knife after she hears Kara say her first name again as she stands closer to her now as she says it. She gets lost in her head as she thinks why did that just sound so strangely familiar? Is she imagining things? Can this truly be the same _Kara_ she knew before? But, this Kara's last name is different. She also looks a bit different at least with those glasses on. She didn't mention ever attending National City University, but she did reveal that some of her family lives here. Cat needs to figure this mystery out.

Kara eeks out, "Oh, no, Cat. Let me help you clean and wrap that cut."

Cat squirms a little as Kara reaches for her hand to bring her over to the sink and wash it. They both feel a pleasant spark in the touch and stare at each other's hands like they look and feel strangely familiar.

Cat quickly pulls her hand out of Kara's once Kara turns the water on over her bleeding finger. "I, I really can do this myself, but thank you. Maybe just bring me a bandage or some gauze tape? Those are in the farthest right kitchen cabinet."

Kara answers, "Of course, Cat."

Kara goes and gets both of those things and hands Cat some paper towels too. Cat thanks her and wraps her small cut herself.

As they return to the food prep work Kara offers, "I'm going to cut up the rest of the vegetables, Cat. I don't want you to get hurt again."

Cat thanks her. After Kara finishes cutting up the vegetables, Cat pours a little cooking oil in two stir fry pans and asks Kara to put the meat and vegetables in both pans to sizzle. As the food cooks, Kara helps Cat get a few large flat plates out of a cabinet. Cat puts soft and hard taco shells, cheese, sour cream, salsa and guacamole on them.

The kids miss the frenzied exchange over Cat's cut in the kitchen with the tv turned up loudly in the living room.

Carter tells Cam and Callie, "Hey, it's great that our moms will be working together. We can all hang out more often."

Kara's kids smile and nod in agreement.

Cam adds, "It would be good if our mom can be friends with your mom too since she's new to the city. Hopefully, your mom being her boss won't be a problem for that."

Clarissa interjects, "Well, our mom already invited her over tonight and your mom accepted so I think they are off to a good start at being at least friends."

She says that last word with hints of sarcasm in her voice. Cam, Callie and Carter all smile and nod.

When the food finishes sizzling, Cat calls out, "Kids! Please go set the dining room table!"

She didn't mean all of them, just hers, but the four teens all stand up together and help each other set the table for family dinner with their mothers.

After everyone sits down and they pass the food around to make their own tacos, everyone eats in silence for a few minutes. Just as Cat predicted earlier in her office, they all eat a lot, except for her. The children eating a lot doesn't faze her, but she is quite surprised by _this_ Kara's voracious appetite with how skinny she is. Cat briefly remembers sitting at a rustic pizza parlor in a remote hill country town hours away from National City with her sister and the other Kara sitting at a table with four pizza trays laid out. The other Kara she knew before ended up eating most of it. Her and Carolyn gawked and laughed at _that_ Kara the whole time.

Kara looks at Cat and breaks the silence, "Hmm, Mmm, This is all so, so good!! Thank you for having us all here tonight for dinner with your family."

Cat replies, "You're very welcome. It's not often my kids invite friends over. It's funny how it worked out that they are both your kids."

Carter suggests, "Maybe they can all join us again soon?"

Cat nods as she carefully chews part of her meal. She eats much slower than the food demolishers that surround her.

Before anyone else speaks up, Clarissa kind of loudly asks just Callie/CJ who sits next to her, "What is your _father_ like? Does he live with you?"

Callie/CJ answers, "Oh, we never met our biological father. Mom says her pregnancy pretty much scared him away. He didn't have a good job and he neglected us and our mom. Shortly after we were born, our mom moved away from him to Metropolis to live with her cousins Clark and Lois who are like our uncle and aunt now. Later, mom told us our biological father died in a car crash when we were five."

Cat interrupts, "Oh wow, Kara, you and your kids have been through some tragic and trying circumstances, huh?""

Kara takes a deep breath in and out. "Yes, we sort of have, but they are very tough kids! All the hard stuff happened a long time ago. We made it through together just fine."

Carter more quietly asks Cam, "Do you have a _father_ _figure_ in your life now? Is your mom seeing anyone now?"

He thinks no one hears him, but everyone does.

Cat interrupts before Cam answers, "Oh, Kara, I'm really sorry our kids are asking your kids _intrusive_ questions. Rest assured, I will never talk to you about anything they said tonight at work."

Kara nods at Cat, but then sternly looks at and directly addresses Carter herself, "Cam and Callie have always had me as their one essential and stable parent and provider as their mother. Their uncle, Clark, is the only father like figure who has really been in their lives at all. While I have dated in the past, primarily women, I'm not currently dating anyone. It's frankly not important at the moment. Adjusting to being ba...being (she almost says back before she repeats the word being) here in National City and helping the kids with that is more important right now. Also, doing well in my brand new job is much more important than any potential romantic pursuits."

Kara, purposely, adds the liking women part to test the waters with Cat, to get a feel for how she is now.

Carter replies, "Sorry, Miss Kent. I didn't mean to ask your son such intrusive questions as my mom called them."

Kara answers, "That's okay. No harm done at all. It's okay to be curious about their father. Obviously, you heard he's gone."

Cat is happy to hear Kara is actually single and that she prefers the company of women to men now. Kara definitely notices Cat smirk when she vaguely mentions the gender of her past relationship partners. Her kids are happy about this too. The four kids look around at each other with a weirdly knowing grin. They are all thinking maybe their moms will be more than just work colleagues and friends. Especially, if they conspire together to have anything to do with making that happen.

When they finish with dinner, everyone helps clean-up.

Afterwards, Kara tells everyone, "Well, we Kents should really be going since it's almost 9pm and I start a new job tomorrow."

Cam looks at her and says, "Okay, mom. We will call an uber to come get us."

Cat protests, "No, no, no! Absolutely not! My driver can be here in 5 minutes to take you wherever you need to go. I insist that he take you so that I know you all arrive home safely."

The Kent kids together say, "Thank you for dinner and offering us your driver and car to ride home with Miss Grant!"

Kara enthusiastically adds, "Thank you, Cat! That is very generous of you!"

"Oh, no, it's nothing at all."

Cat and her kids walk Kara and her kids outside to Cat's waiting black Mercedes stretch town car. The four kids say their goodbyes Both Cat and Kara lightly smile at each other and say almost in unison, "See you tomorrow at the office."

  

* * *

 

**Same Friday Night in September**   **1999** **National City Waterfront Restaurant / Later at Cat's Home**

After about twenty minutes of driving from the University up on the north side to the Waterfront on National City's south side, Cat pulls _Sherry_ into the luxury self-park car station outside Pierpoint 10 Seafood Restaurant, which sits alongside the National City Marina.

When the ladies all get out of the car, both Cat and Lynn notice Kara grimace slightly and whisper to herself, "Argh." Seafood is her least favorite food option.

Lynn asks her, "Hey, Kara, Are you alright?"

Kara lies, "Yes, Lynn, I'm fine."

Lynn responds, "Oh good! I know it's not the best pizza place in town, like I promised you tonight, but you can never go wrong with gourmet seafood."

Cat chimes in, "Unless she's allergic to shellfish? Are you allergic to shellfish, honey?"

The surprise term of endearment that hangs on the end of Cat's question stuns Kara and it takes her a few minutes before she answers, "Umm, no, that's not it. I just can't handle the strong fishy scent and taste of most seafood dishes."

Seafood's pungent smell often burns at all her heightened senses as a Kryptonian when she eats it. But, she can't just tell Lynn and Cat that because she's an alien that seafood affects her differently than most people. She can't even tell them that she's an alien, period.

Lynn suggests, "Oh, well, we will just have to order some fried appetizers even though mother will frown a little at that. The fried calamari, bacon stuffed scallops and popcorn shrimp appetizer plate is not as fishy as everything else."

Cat adds, "And, for your likely _greasy_ _American_ _proclivities_ , the charred ahi Tuna is like the gourmet cheeseburger of fine seafood. You can't go wrong ordering that dish."

Kara chuckles. "Okay. That all sounds great."

Before they walk inside the Pierpoint 10 main entrance, Lynn notes, "It's a good thing we found out about your food preferences before sitting down with mother. She would have made a silly big deal out of you being childish about what you eat. Now, you can just follow our lead."

"Thank you, so much, both of you!"

Cat walks ahead of Lynn and Kara into the restaurant they are a few minutes early for their 6:45 p.m. reservation.

Cat walks up to the hostess desk and tells the person who stands there, "We have an important addendum to the Mrs. Nicholas Willis reservation. There will be one extra person dining with us tonight, so four total. And, of course I hope we will be seated in the glassed in waterfront deck room?"

The hostess affirms, "Yes. Of course! This slight adjustment will be easily made. We will likely be able to seat you in just a few minutes, Mrs. Willis."

Cat smiles. "Thank you for making the last minute accommodation."

The hostess replies, "Never a problem for you Mrs. Willis. And, oh, your, mot (she starts to say mother and stops) uhh, Mrs. Katherine Grant is not here yet."

Cat looks away from the hostess. "Yes. I am well aware. I can observe that with my own two eyes. Still, you will seat us when the table is actually ready not when Mrs. Katherine Grant arrives."

The hostess agrees, "Of course, Mrs. Willis."

Cat responds, "Just figure that all out and let us know when the table is ready. Chop! Chop!"

The truth is Cat and Lynn's mother always arrives ten or fifteen minutes late to any scheduled meeting with either one of them, never on time and never early. She does that mainly to irk Cat as it really works up her nerves to sit and wait on her, generally condescending and unsupportive of her life choices, mother to arrive.

Kara stands behind Cat with Lynn and wonders with a puzzled look on her face why Cat would be rude and not wait for her mother to be seated with them at the same time.

Lynn notices the face Kara makes and as if she can read Kara's mind says, "Mother is always a tad bit late."

Kara says, "Oh, okay, I understand now."

After about five minutes, the three young ladies are taken over to and are seated at Cat's requested table. They look over the wine list and Cat asks for a round of just Perrier water with lemons to start for the table. Cat also requests both a fine California vineyard Merlot and Bordeaux wine to be brought to the table after they order their food. As expected, Katherine Grant is twenty minutes late.

Mrs. Katherine Grant glides into the restaurant wearing four inch white heels holding up her height and look in a white linen suit with a light purple blouse underneath and a long string of white pearls around her neck.

As she makes her way to their table, she calls out, "Oh, Kitty my darling and Lynnie my lovely, both of you come over here and give your _favorite_ mother a kiss on her cheek!"

Lynn groans, "Well, our _only_ mother, so of course you are our _favorite_ mother!"

Cat sighs. "Always so dramatic with the need for pda from your children so all your high society friends will believe you are really loved mother."

Katherine jabs back, "I see no Nicky here again this time, Kitty? I doubt I am ever going to get grandchildren from you two!"

Cat glares at her mother. "Mother, Nicholas is presently in Berlin acquiring more radio and television broadcasting rights in Eastern Europe. You barely see, us, your two daughters, as it is. What use would you have of grandchildren?"

"Come on Kitty, you know our family needs new heirs to continue to carry on our strong, family genetic markers to other generations. You should even give them the Grant last name and forget the Willis."

Cat lightly laughs. "I really don't think Nicholas will appreciate that inkling of yours about our potential child's moniker too much, Mother. If we were to have a son, he would want him to carry on his name. Still, I am not pregnant and have no plans to be anytime soon."

Katherine grumbles out, "Oh, Kitty! Darling, can't you at least start trying? I know Lynnie is never going to give me grandchildren with all her flavor of the week women she meets unless one of them suddenly grows a baby making organ!"

Before Cat replies, Lynn snaps back, "Mother, we live in a different world now. While not easy, a woman can have children with another woman now through insemination or IVF. Still, no, I am not ready for children yet. Also, no, I have not found some one to settle down with yet. I am too young for that!"

Katherine slightly folds from her argument, "Fair enough, dear. Maybe before I die you will give me at least one grandchild. Anyways, who is the dear girl besides you who is gawking like a deer caught in the headlights? I am really not a jaw dropping site to behold dear _deer_ girl! Hmm, I like the sound of that I may just call you that all night!"

Cat butts in, "Oh lordy, mother, don't be silly, her name is Keira!"

Lynn and Kara both try to correct Cat at the same time but Lynn first gets out, "No, it's Kara, like car with a K and like you say aah when you open your mouth at the dentist."

Katherine hears Cat and ignores Lynn and Kara and giggles. "Oh wow! That's even better _Keira_ _the_ _Deer_ _Girl_ be a dear now and fetch my reading glasses out of my purse so I can look at this menu."

Lynn lowly yells out, "NO! My friend is NOT your servant, mother!"

Katherine shifts back into her chair like a stiff board. "Woah, Lynnie you almost gave your only, poor mother a heart attack with that shrieking! But, okay. I suppose I can get my reading glasses myself."

Kara already reaches down to Katherine's purse trying to find her reading glasses and says, "It's really no trouble at all, Mrs. Grant."

Katherine feigns shock at Kara's action and looks amusedly at Lynn. "Well, isn't she a fine catch and sweet one, Lynnie? This _Keira_ _the_ _Deer_ _Girl_ is already well-trained to play fetch. How long have you kept this girl this time?"

Kara hands Katherine her reading glasses as she, herself, snaps out, "I am neither an animal who fetches things nor am I a kept girl! I am a young woman who is just a friend to both of your daughters. I actually have a boyfriend."

Katherine looks directly at Kara's eyes and amusedly responds, "My, my _Keira_ _the_ _Deer_ _Girl_ is quite brazen and feisty! How unfortunate that you are taken. I think both of my daughters have taken quite a shining to you. Of course Kitty is so _happily_ married as you heard and Lynnie is a forever female flipper so neither one of them could really be your type, especially, if you are truly only into _men_. My husband was a wonderful man, but most men are vile creatures. May yours be the _former_."

She adds that last part with a hint of sarcasm in her tone.

Cat interjects with a bit more than a muffled shout, "Enough, mother! Please quit insulting our friend and dinner guest, Kara, as she and Lynn said before. Kara, my apologies for my mistake of mispronouncing your name earlier."

Cat does not have a problem with her mother's insults when they are only directed towards her. However, Cat is not okay with her mother directing insults towards others who don't deserve this treatment.

Lynn stands up and adds, "You know what mother, Kara and I are leaving!"

Katherine snaps at her, "Oh, Lynnie stop being so dramatic! Sit right back down this instant! Stop publicly embarrassing yourself and your feeble and frail mother!"

Cat stands up now too and loudly answers, "NO! We three are leaving! Lynn promised Kara a good meal tonight and this has been far less than a good dining experience so far with you, mother! Maybe we will see you next month! Maybe we will not! Come along ladies!"

Katherine gawks at the lot of them as they leave and only embarrasses herself when she shouts out, "Good riddance! Have fun with your 'Deer girl' play thing. I will be curious to see who ends up with the sloppy seconds since I know my daughters don't ever share things at the same time!"

Cat is very tempted to go back and slap her mother straight across the face, but she restrains herself. Instead, she approaches the hostess and tells her to put the drinks plus anything Mrs. Katherine Grant orders for herself either for drinks and dine-in or to go on the Nicholas Willis tab. At that same moment, the waiter actually carries out the unopened wine bottles Cat ordered earlier. Cat walks up to him before he walks through the dining room. She asks if she can have them and does take them from him. Lynn smirks as Cat walks back towards them.

Cat holds both of the bottles up as she cheerfully exclaims, "Well, sorry for the abrupt change of plans, but, it sure looks like we will have fine wine and some of the finest National City pizza for take out tonight back at my uptown condo!"

Kara and Lynn both widely smile at Cat. As they leave, Mrs. Katherine Grant is left behind all embarassed and completely flabbergasted by her daughters and their unexpected brush-off behavior.

When they get back out to _Sherry_ in the parking lot Lynn mostly tells Kara, "Carla's is not as good as Stevie-O's, but it will do for tonight."

Cat laughs. "Lynn only says that because of her tiny crush on Stevie's little sister Olive that the O stands for while Carla is just a little old Italian grandmother whom I personally believe to be much cuter and sweeter."

Lynn rolls her eyes as Kara replies, "As long as you don't order anchovies or any kind of weird fish pizza I'm sure it will be fantastic!"

Cat and Lynn both almost fall over in laughter.

Cat hands Kara the wine bottles. "Here, put these in the back with you. And, no, we won't subject you to anything else fishy tonight after you had to deal with the stinking stench of our foul mother."

Lynn orders a few meat lovers pizzas, a chicken pizza and a veggie one which is more for Cat than her or Kara.

Cat asks her sister, "Why so many?"

Lynn responds, "Oh, not to embarrass her, but Kara can scarf down a lot."

Cat jovially laughs again as she drives them to pick up pizza at Carla's. "Okay. Well, she really must be starving now after that wait while we dealt with mother. I think we succeeded tonight in putting her in her place. I'm sorry Kara for all the mess that was for you."

Kara counters, "It's really A-okay. No harm done. I'm sorry you both have to deal with her. Well, at least once every month."

Lynn jokingly interjects, " 'Tis a true trial that constantly troubles and tortures our timid souls."

Cat heartily laughs again. "Enough with the linguistic theatrics, little sis, we have already fled far from the most dramatic portion of our evening. Time to kick back and have fun."

When they arrive at Carla's, Lynn and Kara jump out to grab the pizzas. Cat hands them her credit card.

It surprises Cat when she sees how Kara carries all four pizzas out herself. When Lynn opens the car door and sits down in the front seat Kara hands her the pizzas so she doesn't climb in the back of the convertible with them.

Cat gasps before Kara hands the pizzas off. "Wow, you are strong." Kara just nods.

About ten minutes later, they arrive at Cat's condo. They walk inside together. Cat leads with her keys as Kara carries all the pizzas again and Lynn walks in step beside her. When they get inside, Kara sets the pizzas down and goes to wash her hands. Cat goes and changes and grabs t-shirts and sweatpants for everyone.

She tells Lynn and Kara, "We can't eat greasy pizza and just hang out here in fancy clothes so I changed and here's a change of clothes for both of you."

Lynn and Kara take the offered clothes and go off to change in different rooms.

Cat grabs plates for them all as they change and when they both return suggests, "Why don't we just eat in the living room and watch a movie? I will open the wine. You girls grab your pizza slices and pick something to watch."

Cat laughs when she brings the wine glasses into the living room for the ladies and sees they have chosen to watch the original Disney cartoon version of _Beauty_ _and_ _the_ _Beast_.

Cat tells Kara and Lynn as she pours their wine, "Just please don't make any beast jokes about our mother. I have had my fill of her beastly attitude this evening!"

Lynn and Kara in unison answer, "Agreed. We won't!"

Kara and Lynn sit next to each other on the big living room couch, but Cat sits in one of her husband's armchairs off to the side.

They eat pizza, drink wine and watch the movie. Cat notices how Kara falls asleep practically in Lynn's lap.

Near the end of the movie, she softly tells Lynn, "You two will stay over in my spare bedroom tonight."

Lynn nods and gets a sleepy Kara to walk with her there. Cat almost wishes it was her sharing a bed with Kara tonight, but, no, she's a happily married woman like her mother said. And, Kara claims to have a boyfriend. But, damn, the girl does look good in her slightly worn Metropolis University sweatpants and t-shirt. Still, she shouldn't be entertaining these lust-filled thoughts about her younger student. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: CatCo work stuff and National City University college stuff


	4. Sisterly Chats

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took so long to get down and out to you all who actually have been patiently waiting. I wish it was a little better and longer, but I think it came together well in the end. I'm hoping Cat's return for the next two episodes motivates me to continue with this story.
> 
> Alex and Kara talk in the past and present. Cat talks to Carolyn/Lynn in the past about Kara. Cat makes a call in the present in order to start figuring out the past and whether or not Kara Kent is the Kara she used to know.

* * *

 

**First Saturday of September 1999 National City University**

 

It's 11am on Saturday morning the next day after Kara's dinner and movie sleep over night with Lynn (Carolyn) and Cat at Cat's apartment. As Alex unhooks her helmet from its lock and is about to jump onto her motorcycle, after her first Criminal Justice extra credit lecture of the year, she spots her little sister Kara hop out of the back seat of Professor Catherine Willis' cherry red convertible on the faculty side of the University parking lot.

She notices how Kara wears a Metropolis University t-shirt and sweatpants that are much too short on her long legs. Professor Willis gives the girl Alex knows is Lynn Grant a hug and a quick peck kiss on the cheek. As Lynn starts to walk off, Professor Willis does the same to Kara, but even from a distance, Alex can see that the particular peck kiss she places on Kara's cheek stops right at the top of her left lip line before she pulls away.

As Kara faces Alex, Alex sees how Kara smiles wider than the brightness of the sun at her Professor. Alex just shakes her head and is about to pull her helmet on when she sees Lynn turn and tug Kara away from Professor Willis as if she's jealous. Lynn grabs Kara by her left wrist and next she tugs her arm around Kara's shoulders. To Alex, her moves appear not only flirtatious, but possessive and protective.

Alex watches as Lynn and Kara walk away from Cat.

Lynn turns her head and shouts, "bye Cat!" and Professor Willis yells back, "bye Lynn and Keira!"

Kara turns and gives another cheerful smile to Professor Willis.

Alex pulls her helmet on now and revs her bike up and mutters to herself, "That looks like an impending kicked hornet's nest of trouble."

About twenty minutes later, just as Alex lands on the couch at her off-campus apartment she shares with Lucy Lane, her phone starts to vibrate in her pocket. She pulls it out and sees that Kara is calling her.

When she answers Kara rambles out, "Alex, I'm soooo  _excited!_ I made some new friends! They are amazing, brilliant, fun, pretty..."

"And _ONE_ is _MARRIED_  and _YOUR_ _PROFESSOR_! Don't get romantically involved with her!" Alex caustically interjects.

Kara huffs, then laughs. "Pfft! As if I'm _romantically_ interested in her!"

Okay, Kara thinks about it and can admit that maybe she does _harbor_ a teensy bit of a crush on Cat. But, it's not reciprocated is it? There's no way it could be.

Alex continues, "So, I didn't see you wearing your _Professor's_ clothes and Professor Willis blatantly flirting with _heart_ _eyes_ and _special_ smiles in the University parking lot earlier?"

Kara defends herself, "I already gave the clothes to her sister to return them back to Cat, err, Professor Willis. And, _no!_  Of course my professor didn't openly flirt with me earlier! I didn't _flirt_ with her either! She was just being overly friendly and nice! And, like you just said, she's married. Plus, I'm still involved with Mike."

"Oh, yes! Marvelous Mike back in Midvale. Ha! And, it looks like Lynn Grant is already enamored with you too. So you have other romantic prospects."

Kara protests, "What?!? We are just friends too! She's Professor Willis' sister by the way. But, how do you know her nickname?"

"Hmm, I didn't know she was Professor Willis' sister, but I'm glad you weren't coming back from some _sordid_ threesome meeting with your professor and another girl, especially now that I know Lynn is her sister. Lynn dated Lucy for two months during my freshman year before Lucy met James. So, I know that she's into girls. She looked like she is really interested in you. But, okay, Kara. Whatever you do with your _new_ _friends_ just be careful."

Kara sternly answers, " _Nope!_ We simply had a girls' pizza and movie night that ran long so it turned into a very _platonic_ sleepover. And, don't worry! I will! Bye Alex!"

As she hangs up, Kara is even more confused now after her talk with Alex. Well, more like her mother lecture from Alex. Her mind is a mess of jumbled thoughts. She wonders: Are both of her new friends _romantically_ attracted to her? Did they both blatantly flirt with her without Kara noticing? Did she unintentionally flirt back? Why are humans so complicated? She just wanted to tell Alex how happy she is to have made some new _friends?_  Of course, they are both cute ladies, but she does still have a boyfriend back in Midvale. Even if she's a tad enamored with Cat, it must just be a case of hero worship more than anything else, _right?_

A short while later, Lynn walks into Cat's Professor's office on campus and sits down on the comfy armchair in the corner of the room next to the tallest bookshelf. She holds Cat's sweats Kara borrowed last night neatly folded in her hands over her lap.

Cat looks up from her desk above her glasses and asks, "What is it, Lynn?"

Carolyn oddly queries, "Cat, you are _happily_ married, right?"

Cat snaps back at her sister, " _YES!_ _Of_ _course!_ Nicholas and I are very _satisfied_ with each other. What is it with you and mother continually insinuating otherwise?"

Lynn argues, "Well, happy and satisfied are not the same thing!"

"For him and I, they are. What is this really about? You have something else on your mind, yes?"

Lynn confesses, "Well, I really like Kara so I truly hope you can back off and not make a romantic play for her either intentionally or inadvertently."

Cat laughs out, "Ha! As if I would risk my marriage to an absolutely wonderful up and coming media mogul for a flash in the pan fling with some cutesy and ditsy college freshman? Not to mention such an unethical _dalliance_ would ruin both my own personal and professional reputations. You have really lost your mind this time, Lynn!"

As Lynn stands up to leave she halfheartedly offers, "Okay. I _trust_ you, Cat. I hope my trust is well-placed. And, by the way I brought back the sleep clothes you let Kara borrow."

Cat takes the spare clothes from Lynn as they say goodbye to each other. After Lynn leaves the room, Cat holds up the t-shirt she let Kara borrow and smells the girl's vanilla and lavender body spray on it. Cat mentally berates herself now. Of course Lynn is right. She is romantically attracted to Kara, but she can't and won't act on it.

Maybe it's just a sexual attraction. She can't really have romantic feelings for a girl she barely knows, _can_ _she?_ Either way, it's just not _proper._ She, herself, is both married to a good man and is Kara's professor. Never mind the somewhat _considerable_ age difference between them. Kara has her whole life ahead of her. She deserves the chance to find happiness with anyone else she chooses that's _not_ Cat. Even if that person is possibly her sister Lynn, Cat needs to just let that be. They can still either be friends or at least friendly with each other.

 

* * *

 

**First Friday Morning in March 2017 Kara's House / Alex's House / CatCo**

Early the next morning, right after Cam and CJ head off to school, Kara calls Alex and very quickly stutters out, "Hey, sis! We need to run some more blood tests on my kids. Can I bring them by the DEO tomorrow in the morning? I can't tell you _why_ now, but I will tell you _why_ tomorrow morning. Since it's Saturday tomorrow, not too many people will be around, right?"

Alex laughs before she responds, "Okay! Kar, slow down. I did hear you. But, you just rambled that all out super fast even for you. So breathe a minute, will you? We haven't done blood tests on the kids since two years ago when they started having trouble with their eyes and ears. Are they displaying new powers?"

After a few deep breaths in and out, Kara, less rapidly, but, still, nervously responds, " _NO!_ No new powers. I don't think they will get their full powers until they turn 18. All I will say is that I'm no longer sure about Mike being their other biological parent."

A bit taken aback in shock by this last comment of Kara's, Alex slowly replies, "Oh, wow! Okay. We will try and figure that out. I will meet you three at the DEO regular employees' entrance around the back of the building tomorrow at 9am? (She means the human vs' the alien and meta-human entrance) I'm sure the kids will be angry to get dragged out of bed any earlier on a Saturday morning even to both see their favorite aunt and have free access to a real science lab."

Kara answers, "Yeah. They will be either hangry or just really grumpy that early. I should make my special fruit bomb pancakes for them."

Alex continues, "Anyways, sis, while I have you on the phone, my darling niece texted me with a ton of emojis and told me you got the journalist job you interviewed for at CatCo. So congratulations! But, are you sure you want to pursue this _particular_ opportunity?"

Kara affirmatively answers, "Yes, Alex! Of course I do! You know the kids need more stability now before they go off to college. I'm excited to be back living near you and Eliza as well! Plus, I can do a lot of good as a stateside journalist now to help other aliens out as they maneuver their rights and restrictions under the new legislation the President just passed. CatCo is the best place to help me take on that endeavor."

Alex agrees, "True, I guess. But, what about the big elephant in the room, Catherine Jane Grant? She really didn't recognize you with a different last name, sleek hairstyle and geek chicque glasses? Even as the great investigative journalist she is?"

Kara stutters as she rambles out her answer again, "Ugh, NO! Well, at least Cat didn't say anything to indicate that she did recognize me. But, Alex she has these two teenage kids that Cam and Callie met at school yesterday. And, we all sort of had dinner together last night."

A shocked Alex responds, "What? Are you kidding me! You didn't! Yikes! Sis, you are digging yourself into another hole here. What about Carolyn Grant?"

Kara sadly replies, "She's gone. I found out last night that she passed away a long time ago."

"Kar, I'm so sorry."

"It's okay. I don't know how I could ever apologize to her for just leaving the way I did back then. At least Cat flat out told me to get lost back then. I think she ripped my heart out more than I did any damage to hers."

Alex agrees, "Yeah, the ever stoic _Queen_ _of_ _All_ _Media_ probably didn't have much of a heart even back then before most of the fame took hold. It's all in the past now. Maybe you can still build something new with her even if only a friendship?"

Kara dejectedly responds, "I don't know. It's all so complicated now. I don't want to talk about it. I have to get to work now to fill out HR and security paperwork and meet my new direct supervisor. At least I don't directly report to Cat, which should make my job a little easier."

"Okay. I will let you go and get on with your day. I will see you tomorrow, sis, bye."

After Kara says goodbye and hangs up, Alex puts her phone down on her kitchen island and opens her laptop to search for anything she can find on Catherine Jane Grant's kids. There's one old picture from a children's hospital charity event a few years back. Alex loudly gasps and just about falls over off of the barstool she sits on when she first sees it. Her mother Eliza happens to walk into Alex's kitchen at that exact moment and catches her and holds her up before she falls off the barstool.

Eliza concernedly asks, "Hey, honey, are you okay? What's up? Is something _wrong?_ "

Alex looks back at the laptop and Eliza looks too and says, "Oh, umm, who's that woman with Cam and CJ?"

Alex hesitantly answers, "Mom, it's Kara's new boss. But, look closer."

Eliza does look more closely at the photo and curiously blurts out, "Okay, that's not Cam and CJ. Except for the differences in hair color and eye color, those two kids look like they could be Cam and CJ's twins. That's rather odd. Who are they?"

Alex hesitantly responds, "Oh, just the _Queen_ _of_ _All_ _Media_ , Catherine Jane Grant's kids, Carter and Clarissa Grant. Do you remember, Professor Catherine Willis, Kara's journalism professor when Kara attended National City University that one semester before she moved away after she had Cameron and Callie?"

"Oh woah! That's her! And those are _her_ kids? Are you thinking what _I'm_ _thinking?"_

"Yes, mom. I think I am thinking what you are thinking. Kara got herself into much more of a _mess_ than we knew back then. I have to figure this out before the very intelligent Catherine Jane Grant does first. Kara's bringing the kids to the DEO tomorrow. Hopefully, I will learn some things then. Well, her two kids. I wonder how I can get tests done on the other two Grant kids? I will figure something out once Kara tells me everything."

Eliza responds, "Okay, I don't want to get involved...yet. But, I do want to know if those other two kids are Kara's and my grandkids too. Let me know what you find out."

"I will let you know what I find out when I do find out anything, but only if Kara lets me tell you. Hopefully, she will after I yell at her about the picture we just found."

During that same morning at CatCo, Cat makes an important call to the Dean of National City University, "Hello, Dean Meyers. This is your leading scholarship donor and distinguished trustee Catherine Jane Grant formerly Willis. I need some digging to be done."

Dean Meyers replies, "Of course, Miss Grant. What exactly do you need today?"

Cat answers, "I need a copy of all the enrollment records for the three years I taught my Journalism 101 course at the University. After I review those enrollment lists for my course, I may need a copy of a few of my former students' transcripts as well as copies of their final term projects. I know the journalism department keeps those final term projects on a large digital file now to safeguard against plagiarism issues."

Cat knows _exactly_ what semester and year she needs those records from, but she needs to make it look like she isn't searching for something specific. She needs to make it appear like she just intends to review information from her teaching days at National City University.

Dean Meyers answers, "Of course, Miss Grant. I can have those records pulled together in the next few hours. Due to lawsuits surrounding personal privacy issues now, I cannot send information like that over e-mail. Instead, I will have a courier from the enrollment office deliver those enrollment records personally to your office by 5pm today."

Cat answers, "Excellent! Good day Dean Meyers!"

After Cat gets off the phone, she steps out onto her office's balcony and closes the door behind her. She looks out on the city and talks aloud to herself, "Lynn, I truly miss you little sis! I'm going to figure out what's going on with this Kara Kent. I think she's the Kara we both knew before when we were younger. And, of course it's rather odd that both your daughter and my son look quite a bit like her daughter and her son. I apologize for how I let myself fall for her and I acted on that when you trusted me not to let that happen. I regret how I drove her out of our lives as I know she was your close friend. I'm so sorry more than anything how Clarissa, Carter and I lost you from our lives too soon. I wish you could be here now to see this Kara and probably confirm my suspicions."

Cat doesn't notice how Kara stands outside her office and watches her through the glass walls of the office and through the additional glass of the balcony windows. With her superhearing, Kara listens to what Cat says to herself. Still, Kara only makes it in time to hear the last few sentences about Cat's regrets. A few tears fall from Kara's eyes and she runs off to the ladies' room before Cat catches her in a moment of weakness at work.


	5. First Days and First Impressions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, Oh wow! Cat Grant is back and she ruled the show tonight! I know all the Supercat shippers are dying over that now canon bridal carry rescue!
> 
> Thank you to the readers for all the new kudos and positive reviews! You are encouraging me to try to get some more of this out of my head onto the page. Buckle up for another long chapter!

* * *

 

**First Friday in March 2017             CatCo / Fin Wok Restaurant and National City Boardwalk**

Cat turns around for just a split second and notices how fast Kara runs off. As Cat watches Kara's rather hasty retreat, she thinks to herself, she could not possibly have heard me, could she have? Cat wipes a few small tears from her eyes with just the tips of her fingers and steps back into her office space.

After an additional brief moment of introspective thought, she motions her assistant to come into her office. As Miss Teschmacher hands Cat her morning latte, Cat stares at the television screens on the wall and says, "Good morning, Eden. Was that Keira Kent who just so quickly scurried away?"

Her assistant answers, "Yes, Miss Grant. I'm sorry. Miss Kent just stood there and stared into your office for about thirty seconds. Then, she just bolted without saying anything. I didn't know what to do."

Cat sips her latte and then responds, "That's fine. No worries. If she needed something from me, she would have stayed around to either ask or tell me. Anyways, as you already know, I now have important meetings for the rest of the day until 4:30pm. As the first few meetings are conference calls that I will take here in my office, I am not to be disturbed for any reason until afterwards even by Miss. Kent or Mr. Carr if he comes barging up here for some ridiculous nonsensical reason as he often does."

Miss Tessemacher responds, "Yes, Miss Grant. No interruptions at all. Understood."

Cat continues, "I also expect a courier with some important files from National City University to arrive here sometime before 5pm today. You are authorized to sign for those files. Further, I want you to book an early dinner reservation for six people under my name for 5:30pm at that new Asian and seafood fusion restaurant Fin Wok near the National City pier. Wait until around 3pm and then call and give Miss Kent the address for the restaurant, but don't write the name of the place down with the address. Do tell her it's imperative for her to meet me there at 5:20pm today. That is all. Chop! Chop!"

Miss Tessemacher knows not to question Miss Grant's orders, but she is definitely curious as to what is going on between her boss and Miss Kent. She's curious why Miss Kent just stood there in a daze before and then briskly walked off. About this dinner, it might just be a casual business dinner with other journalist colleagues, but Miss Grant didn't tell her to call and invite anyone else. She also knows Miss Kent left here last night with Miss Grant and her kids. She notices how Miss Grant seems to have a little more pep in her step today as well. If Miss Kent put it there all the better for Miss Grant. Anyone who makes Miss Grant both easier to deal with and happier in general holds a gold star in her book.

After her assistant leaves, Cat quickly texts her kids and tells them to meet her at that same restaurant at 5:30pm and to bring the Kent kids along with them.

Carter and Clarissa see the messages from their mom during their respective lunch breaks. Clarissa looks at her phone and then tells Callie/CJ, "Well, I think my mom really likes your mom. She sent a message to Carter and I to meet her for dinner with you and your brother later. I'm pretty sure she invited your mom, too. But, it's, likely, supposed to be a surprise. She doesn't really invite employees out. Last night was a first and it was actually a lot of fun. Still, she's using the four of us kids as a buffer. I think it means she's either nervous or hesitant to ask your mom out for dinner with just the two of them as it might seem like it's a date. I mean they did just meet yesterday so that's understandable. This is the getting to know you phase of their friendship and work relationship at least. If they did want to date, though, they both already know that we all get along well. Kids are usually the hardest hurdle to overcome. I like your mom though and Carter does too."

CJ responds, "It's so bizarre how there is this natural _chemistry_ between your mom and mine. It's like they have known each other a long time even though they haven't really. I know from overhearing my Aunt Alex and my mom talking before that my mom did live here for awhile in National City the year before Cam and I were born. Maybe they knew each other then."

In a curious tone, Clarissa queries, "Hmm, really? Wow! Maybe they did? It's also interesting that Carter and Cameron look so much alike and that you and I do too, isn't it?"

CJ answers, "I know, I noticed that yesterday. It just has to be a strange coincidence though, right? A lot of people look like other people they are not related to, right? I don't think my mom and your biological mom and Carter's biological mom could have either used the same sperm donor or been involved with the same guy. That doesn't make any sense based on what my mom told Cam and I about our dad. I also don't think Carter's dad could be your dad based on what you told me about your other mom. I'm not sure any of us were necessarily planned out, but our moms definitely wanted us since they kept us and raised us. Maybe, we should do some investigating of our own and try to figure things out."

Clarissa agrees, "Yeah, you should ask your aunt about your mom's time here in National City. I will try and find out more about what both my moms did here when they were younger."

CJ responds, "I can try and ask my aunt some questions when I see her this weekend."

Clarissa continues, "Great! Anyways, your mom seems to make my mom happy! It's nice to see my mom happy. My mom doesn't have a lot of friends. If our moms even just become good friends it will be awesome!"

CJ concurs, "It's nice to see my mom happy too because of someone other than Cam and I. My mom doesn't have many friends either. After tonight, we should brainstorm with our mutual brothers more ways to get our moms to spend more time together maybe even alone versus with all of us together."

Clarissa winks and smiles. "Definitely."

Later in the afternoon, Miss Tessemacher is about to call Miss Kent when a slightly flustered Kara appears at her desk again.

Kara says, "Hello, It's Eve, right? Is Miss Grant around?"

Eve responds, "Well, Miss Grant prefers for her other employees to address me as Miss Tessemacher, but I suppose it's okay if you call me Eve. She actually calls me Eden a lot. She likes to pretend she doesn't know people's real names. Unfortunately, Miss Grant is not around at the moment. She is in meetings for another hour or so. But, she did tell me to tell you to meet her at this address at 5:20pm this evening."

Kara looks at the slip of paper Eve hands her and says, "Okay. Yes. Please tell Miss Grant I will be there. That's no problem at all. And, Eve you can either call me Kara if you like or Miss Kent if you prefer the formality and I guess around Cat, err, Miss Grant."

As Kara talks to Eve, the National City University courier steps up to Eve's desk as well and just as Kara finishes talking to Eve, he says, "Hi, I have an envelope here for Miss Grant. I was told you could sign for it, Miss Tessemacher?"

Eve turns from Kara to the courier, "Yes, of course. Thank you!"

She signs for the thick yellow Manila envelope the courier offers her. Kara sees the National City University logo stamped on the envelope. She's tempted to look inside with her x-ray vision, but she decides not to do that.

Around the same time of day, the four kids all meet up after school and head to the Grant house to study for a bit before heading to the restaurant to meet their moms. Cam and CJ both text their mom to say they have dinner plans with friends.

When Kara arrives at the address Eve gave her and realizes it is the new Asian and seafood fusion restaurant Fin Wok that her sister told her about she's not sure exactly what's going on. Cat's car pulls up and her driver would have opened her door, but Kara's already there to do that as she recognizes it as the car that drove her and her kids home last night. The driver stops and smiles and waves at Kara before he re-opens his door to get back into the driver's seat.

Kara holds out her hand for Cat to help her out of her car and says, "Hi, Miss Grant! Are we here for a _business_ dinner?"

Cat answers, "No, Kara. This is _not_ a business dinner. I told you before you can call me Cat outside of work. It's been a long week for me and I think for you too. I've wanted to check out this new restaurant for awhile and who better to do that with then a new friend, and, oh, here they are, our kids."

Kara turns and sees the four kids, hers and Cat's walking towards them and smiles and laughs and says, "Cat, you really didn't have to treat us all to dinner two nights in a row! And, I feel like I keep getting surprise ambushed by my kids!"

Cat laughs. "Well, I thought a nice dinner out would take the rough edges off of the hectic week that it's been. The surprise ambush tonight is really my doing, not theirs. I told my kids to meet me here and to bring yours along as well. I might have told them not to tell you about it. I thought it would be fun to check out this restaurant with our kids so we could try a little bit of everything on the menu."

Kara smiles. "Well, thank you!"

They all head into the Fin Wok restaurant together almost like a family. Kara doesn't miss Cat's offhand use of the word friend in place of work colleague. She finds it amusing that Cat, obviously, wants to spend more time with her even if their kids are serving as a go between. Of course, it doesn't escape her that Cat might be trying to figure out more about who she really is and if they knew each other before they _met_ yesterday.

Almost immediately after they all order their appetizers and dinner meals, a slightly inebriated, Rhea Daxam, Mayor of Comet City, stumbles her way over to their table from the restaurant's bar and sputters out, "Well, well, well, looks like my _runaway_ daughter in-law is back stateside with my grandchildren and she didn't even have the common courtesy to call me to let me know?"

Kara stands up and scowls at her and answers, "Rhea, your son, Mi (she stops herself before she says his full name as it might ring a bell with Cat) and I were never married. I would prefer not to discuss your non-existent relationship with MY children in front of them. Can we take a short walk outside, please?"

A slightly falling over Rhea roughly grabs Kara's wrist and nods, "Fine. Let's go!"

When they get outside, Kara reluctantly leads them into the alleyway between two restaurants in hopes to not make an embarrassing public display. As they walk towards the waterfront Kara shouts, "Please let go of my arm now, Rhea! Get ahold of yourself! I really did not expect to see you here tonight. I just returned to the United States a few days ago. The last time you saw MY children and I they were only five years old. I seem to recall, your despicable words that 'these bastard brats are an abominable mistake and, clearly, not my son's.' Back even before that, you told me when you first met me, when I was pregnant, that I was not to expect any financial support from either him or you. So, I never asked either him or you for anything. I took care of MY children on my own with the help of their real family, my relatives. Plus, guess what? They are probably not your son's kids, after all. If that's so, you have no right to have anything to do with them."

Rhea angrily exclaims, "Oh, so you who were always all mighty on your high horse about my son's alleged philanderer ways stepped out on him, yourself, just like I always suspected and I told him you had done?"

Kara sternly defends herself, "Actually, your son and I were not officially together at the time my children may have been conceived so, no, I did not cheat on him. Unlike him, who disappeared every weekend while I was pregnant with children, whom I thought for the longest time were his. Then, he never made it to their birth because he was passed out drunk in some other woman's bed. I finally just got fed up with his drinking and cheating and I left in order to give my children a better life away from him and you!"

Rhea spits out, "Sure, justify your _floozy_ behavior anyway you can!"

A few minutes after Kara steps outside with Rhea, Cat goes outside to check up on Kara and overhears about half of their conversation. She notices Rhea is about to slap Kara across the face and races over to pull Rhea's hand back and shouts out, "Mayor Daxam, I would say it's been a pleasure to run into you tonight, but as you seem a bit out of sorts and to be quite bothersome to my new colleague, I can call my driver and have you taken to your hotel before you make any more of a disastrous scene out here on the National City waterfront."

Rhea replies, "Oh, Miss Grant, that unappreciated offer is truly unnecessary. My driver awaits me in the self-park lot. I just need to wave to him to pull up and pick me up and he will."

Rhea turns and does wave over to him. As the three ladies walk back out of the alleyway in front of the restaurant, Cat continues her lecture to Rhea, "Let's not meet like this again, Mayor, because things may just get uglier as I didn't even pull my claws out this time. If you ever again physically lay a hand on Miss Kent, in my presence, I most certainly will scratch back in ways that will both draw blood and leave marks, both privately and publicly if need be. The same goes if you ever approach her children."

Rhea gives Cat a death glare before she steps past her driver and gets into the open door of her limo. As they watch Rhea's limo pull away, Cat asks, "So, since you are on a first name basis with Comet City's Mayor, Kara, was her son really your children's father as she seemed to insinuate?"

Kara sternly replies, "Cat, I can't explain it now. I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think so anymore. I will finding out either one way or another soon. His name is not on their birth certificate because his mother refused to allow him to claim them as his. She never wanted to have to pay any money out if they were."

Cat interrupts, "That's truly terrible, Kara. I'm sorry you had to deal with her tonight."

Kara answers, "No, I'm okay. I only talked to her tonight because I still feel bad about what happened years ago with her son. The last time I saw her was after her son's funeral when the kids were five. She blames me for his death. I called him to tell him I was leaving the country for work and taking my kids with me. He drank himself into a frenzy for hours and then got in a car and wrapped it around a telephone pole. I took the kids to the funeral, but didn't tell them who he was besides being mommy's friend. They never met him before and they were a little too young to understand then about a loss of someone they didn't know who might have been family. Rhea got real angry at me and them that day and said awful things because of her loss. Still, I never wanted her near them after that day. We left and she never saw them again. I never spoke with her again before tonight."

Cat gasps out, "Oh, Kara! That's horrible and it's not your fault that he died. He chose to drink and drive. Anyways, I don't want Rhea Daxam coming near you again at least not where I can control that from happening. I will make sure to call CatCo's security office later and put her on CatCo's banned persons list. I will also call the school on Monday and make sure they don't allow Rhea to have access to or inquire about your kids. For now, why don't we get back to our meal with our kids now? Knowing their large appetites they probably already ate all the appetizers!"

Kara sighs, "I'm not sure all of those protective measures against Rhea are entirely necessary, but I appreciate your concerns for the safety of my kids and I. Anyways, I really hope the kids haven't eaten all the appetizers! I am absolutely starving after getting all worked up over that crazy lady and before that Snapper Carr earlier today."

Cat replies, "Oh, is that why you looked flustered when Miss Tessemacher saw you this afternoon? Did you not eat yet today? We need to get back to that food before it's all devoured! We can always talk about the less than dapper Snapper sometime later. I'm sure he gave you the whole you need to wait two months before you get your own unshared byline speech? Don't worry one bit. That is his standard fake hazing technique with any new journalists and reporters I personally hire. I bet you will have your own first individual byline for CatCo media within one month if not sooner than that. He needs to get over himself!"

They both laugh. Without much thought to it, Cat holds her hand to Kara's lower back as they walk back inside Fin Wok. They both feel a strange tingle inside. Kara realizes that Cat pays close attention to her needs and feels appreciative of her concerns. Kara also notices Cat's use of the word _our_ when referring to the meal and the kids like they are at a family dinner and this makes her feel warm inside and brightly smile on the outside.

When they return to the table, CJ stands up to hug her mom and asks, "Mom are you okay? Is that awful lady really our grandmother?"

Kara replies, "Yes, I'm fine thanks to Cat! And, no that awful lady is NOT your grandmother. Eliza is your _only_ _real_ grandmother."

Well, Kara knows that's not entirely true. At least she suspects the equally terrifying crazy lady Katherine Grant might be their actual biological grandmother. She can't tell them that though. She's not sure if she would ever even want to introduce them to Cat's mother.

After she sits down Carter holds out half a plate of pork potstickers to Kara and tells her, "Cam and CJ told us these are usually your favorite appetizer so we saved them for you."

She gladly takes them and tells him, "Thank you, Carter!" just as Cam and Cat have close to the same verbal exchange over shrimp and vegetable egg rolls.

Cat offers a few to Kara and Kara's kids together immediately answer, " _NO!_ " for her.

Cat pipes up, "Well, your mom could use a few veggies in her daily food intake. Nothing wrong with them."

Cam and CJ again simultaneously start, "It's not that..." before Clarissa in a huff interrupts, "Geez, mom you don't have to mother Cam and CJ's mom!"

After she quickly finishes the potstickers while everyone else argues, Kara interjects, "No one even let me answer. Sure! I will try a few. Why not?"

Cat smiles and puts a few on Kara's already noticeably empty appetizer plate.

After she takes a bite, Kara comments, "Mhmm, they are good!"

Kara's kids laugh and think she only says that to appease Miss Grant, but they are also hopeful their mother won't have a reaction to the small bit of seafood in them. After Kara fully swallows the first one, however, she starts to cough and sneeze a lot and her eyes get watery so CJ quickly hands Kara a glass and says, "Mom, you need water, here."

Cat tightly grips Kara's left shoulder and asks, "Kara, Are you okay?"

After Kara drinks the whole glass of water, she feels better and gently brushes Cat's hand from her shoulder and says, "Yes, I didn't mean to scare anyone."

The worried waiter who watched that scene play out steps up and refills Kara's water glass as CJ explains, "Our mom is not allergic to seafood, but she has an extreme taste sensitivity issue with it."

Cat comments, "Oh, that's _curious_ , but I'm so glad you are okay, Kara! No more seafood for you tonight!"

Kara laughs and answers, "I will just stick to my usual carnivorous eating habits instead!"

Everyone laughs. They get through the rest of their dinner without incident. Cat and Kara mostly listen as they let the kids talk about school and new video games. When Kara's kids mention that they have never really played board games before a shocked Carter exclaims, "What?!? You all have to come over sometime to play Settlers of Cataan. Maybe tonight even?"

Kara answers for her family, "Sorry, the kids and I can't stay out late tonight as I'm taking them to visit their aunt early tomorrow morning."

Carter responds, "Oh, well, another time then. But tonight, can we all take a walk down the pier and maybe Clarissa and I can show Cam and CJ the arcade here? We can all get frozen yogurt for dessert afterwards too. Is there enough time for that? It's only a little after 7pm now. That's still early, right?"

Kara and Cat both nod in agreement. The kids all skip out to run to the arcade together. Cat pays the bill when it comes. She then stands up and tells Kara, "Come on, let's go catch up to our twin set of teen terrors!"

Kara nearly chokes on air at the _twin_ comment Cat could only have meant as a joke, but if only she knew what Kara suspects.

As the ladies walk down the pier side by side, the sun is just starting to set and there is a light breeze blowing in the air. They walk close together, but try hard not to touch each other. Instead, both Cat and Kara slyly steal glimpses of each other as the wind tossles their respective hair curls around. They notice some of each other's stark features in the last gleams of the day's setting sun.

Kara steals brief glances at those luscious and thin, but strong lips that latched onto hers once and swallowed pieces of her soul in the air they drew away from her. In one of those stolen moments she takes, Cat swears to herself that the sparkle in Kara's eyes matches the sparkle in the eyes of the girl she used to know. As Kara's hair shines brighter for a few minutes, Cat's now even more convinced this Kara is the girl she held in her arms that one wonderful night many years ago. Cat remembers slowly brushing her fingers through those long locks as she straddled the hips of the girl who pulled her in for so many of the most passionate kisses of her life.

In her own trance of thought, Cat starts to trip over a stray rock on the pier, but Kara catches her before she does and says, "Careful, Cat! I got you!" as she pulls her up and wraps her arm around Cat's shoulders. As Kara does this, Cat, without thinking, reaches up and over and grabs ahold of those curly locks she's held onto before and gently strokes them and whispers, "Thank you!"

Kara doesn't say anything about this, now, oddly intimate moment. She just stares at Cat for a few brief seconds and brightly smiles, then blushes and nervously giggles.

Those seconds pass too quickly for Cat as Kara just as quickly looks away.

"Oh, we made it to the arcade! Let's go check on our kids."

She quickly breaks her arm free from her hold on Cat and her hair free from Cat's hold on her. Immediately, Cat misses the feel of Kara's closeness and warmth around her. Still, she knows she needs to be careful and not let their kids nor anyone else see her and Kara that close at least not yet. They are just new work colleagues at the moment and maybe new friends as well. She doesn't want either her kids or anyone else to suspect something more is happening between them.

The kids play a few more games as Cat and Kara just stand behind them and watch. Then, they all walk towards the Froyo shop a few places down from the arcade. They sit on a few of the scattered benches across from each other along the pier. Cat's kids sit next to Kara on one bench and Kara's kids sit on either side of Cat directly across from them.

As they all eat their frozen yogurt, they watch the water roll around in small waves under the combined overhanging pier lighting and the moon's natural lighting. It's a very peaceful end to a nice evening and all six of them strangely feel like they are sharing in a family moment. After eating a few spoonfuls of her frozen yogurt, Cat smiles over at Kara and she smiles right back. Their respective daughters wink at each other when they notice that slightly intimate interaction between their mothers.

Since Clarissa and Carter sit closest to Kara she offers to throw their cups out for them when they all finish eating their frozen yogurt. She's careful to make sure no one notices as she takes their spoons in napkins and slips them into one of her jacket pockets. After they all walk back to the restaurant parking lot, Kara and her kids thank Cat again and they say their respective goodbyes. Cat called her car for Kara and her kids to again take home. Cat heads home with her kids in their car they drove to the restaurant in earlier.

 

* * *

 

**Second Monday in September 1999   National City University**

About ten minutes after Kara sits down in the auditorium for her _Journalism_ _101_ course, she hears Cat's voice beam out across the room: "Welcome to your now second day of _Journalism_ _101_! Once again, I am Professor Catherine Willis. Please refer to me as either Professor or Professor Willis. Learning over 100 names quickly is not going to be possible so I will call you by whatever name comes to mind when I point at you. I already handed out to all of you a syllabus last Thursday. I have a few more up front here if you missed the first day due to being wait-listed. Please note, if you missed the first date of our class for any reason other than that you were wait-listed, you have only one more excused for any reason absence before an absence affects your final grade for this course. So can anyone who carefully read through the course syllabus tell me what that means?"

Kara notices how fast Veronica Sinclair, in the front row, raises her hand to answer. When Professor Willis points to her, she offers, "Each student is allowed two excused for any reason absences during the term after which if an absence is not shown to be the result of a proven illness, injury or family emergency then five points will be deducted from a students' grade for any properly unexcused absence. Therefore, attendance is very important to each student's success in this course."

Professor Willis responds to the whole class, "Yes, Very good! Thank you, Miss Sinkler! Further, I trust you have all read the first 50 pages of our secondary course textbook _The_ _History_ _of_ _Journalism_ _in_ _National_ _City_?"

Several heads nod in the sea of 100 or so students taking the class. Of course, Cat notices Kara Danvers is one of them.

Professor Willis continues, "If you have not read those pages, yet, then, this short pop quiz is not going to go over too well for you."

The pop quiz is in part a measure to judge whether her students have read through and understood the required reading material. She also wants to gauge her students' intelligence and what their personal interests are. Those interests are important to the final project for the course.

At first glance, this particular pop quiz appears a little daunting as it spans three single sided pages. The first page asks all about National City's news history. She asks her students to name the first newspaper, radio station and broadcast news channels in the city. She also asks about National City's earliest print journalists, news anchors/reporters and radio broadcast readers of the news. Those are questions the students will likely only have the correct answers to if they have read the course reading material.

The second page of the pop quiz posits a bunch of questions that there are no wrong answers for unless left unanswered: What was each student's local newspaper growing up? What their favorite news story ever was and why? Who writes for that newspaper? Are there male and female print journalists working for that newspaper? What do the men write about? What do the women write about? Does the local paper cover more than local news and events? If so, what else does it include? What amount of the paper covers non-local news and events? What was their local news television station where they grew up? What anchors did they pay attention to most? Were their both male and female anchors? What kinds of stories did men report on vs women? Did they listen to radio news? What kind of reports do they remember from radio news?

The third page of the pop quiz is meant to perplex most if not all of her new students. It's a series of True or False questions. As Professor Willis knows there is no complete hardline truth in any form of journalism this page is sort of a trick to get her students to think and not actually answer these questions. There are facts and there are opinions in Journalism. Opinions need to be supported with facts. Still, there are different sides and truths to tell with different facts in any event that ever happens in recorded and unrecorded human history. Sometimes facts may be mere bias or opinion of one side over another.

About ten minutes after Professor Willis hands out the pop quiz, Kara raises her hand and asks, "Professor, Are we really supposed to answer True or False questions for this class?"

Most of the other students seem to fidget around with their pens and pencils as they do try to answer those questions.

Professor Willis smiles and answers, "Well, Keira Denvers that's entirely up to you. Can those questions be decisively answered True or False?"

Kara replies, "No, they are all open to interpretation. Your own question asking me if I can answer those questions is subject to my own opinion as well."

Professor Willis laughs and says, " _Brava!_  Well-stated! You do not have to actually answer any of those questions. Honestly, I am a bit amazed any student successfully challenged the logic of the third page of this pop quiz. This is the first time that has ever happened in the three terms I have taught this particular course."

The snobby girl Kara now knows is Veronica Sinclair turns in her chair to glare and roll her eyes at Kara. Her friends do the same. There are additional murmurs across the classroom of _teacher's_ _pet_. The two young men who sit nearest to Kara hold their hands up for high fives. Kara obliges.

After Professor Willis hears the murmurs and notices the students turn to Kara to glare at and high five her, she authoritatively tells the class, "Enough of the chaos! Please settle down, everyone! When you complete the first two pages of the quiz please pass your whole quiz forward to the front. You will mainly be graded on the answers you gave on the first page. Still, you will receive five extra points for completion of the second page. However, each student will lose half a point for each True or False question you actually answered on the third page. Even if you cross answers on that third page out, I will still deduct points. Make sure your full names and National City University Student ID numbers are also written on the top right corner of each page."

Most of the class groans when Professor Willis adds the bit about point deduction.

Professor Willis waits for all the quizzes to be passed forward and then she continues, "Now, the purpose of this quiz was three-fold. Who can give me one prong of that three-fold purpose?"

The skinny young man with wirey dark hair who sits in front of Kara that high-fived her before raises his hand and Professor Willis calls out, "Yes, Winston Scott, do you have an answer to contribute?"

He tells the class, "Umm, its actually Winslow Schott and Winn for short (Professor Willis loudly coughs and looks away from him as he corrects her. Anyways, yes, professor! I do have an answer to contribute. The quiz was intended to get us to recall what we learned and remembered from the course readings."

Professor Willis comments, "Good job, Mr. Scott! Anyone else?"

Jimmy Olsen the bald young black man sitting next to Kara answers, "Yes, this pop quiz was meant to get us to think intelligently about what we have learned about Journalism from our past experiences with print, radio and television news media."

Professor Willis responds, "Yes, that answer is sufficient. Thank you, Timmy!"

Kara hears the young man seated next to her murmur _Jimmy_ under his breath. She smiles at him and holds back a laugh. She is quick to put a serious face back on as she notices how Professor Willis stares directly at her.

Professor Willis then adds, "Finally, as your classmate, Keira, already pointed out, this pop quiz was meant to help you recognize that there are major differences between facts and opinions. Further, true and false statements even in Journalism are open to interpretation. Anyways, for today, I primarily care about the second part of the quiz. I hope that part honed in at each of your own personal interests for taking this course. You all will work together in groups of ten students to brainstorm ideas on your final project. This will either include a news broadcast with fact and opinion pieces or your own newspaper which will include the same things. The syllabus explains your term project and grading in much more depth. I am about to hand out copies of the list with the groups I have arranged for you."

When they see their names listed in the same group, Kara, Jimmy and Winn all grin at each other and high five again. But, then they share a collective groan when they see Veronica and her friends Leslie and Siobhan as well as four jocks: two guys and two girls are also listed as being in their group. The whole class moves into their groups to talk.

Kara's group decides to create a newspaper as they think that will best showcase their various intellectual skills and talents. Surprisingly, everyone in the group likes Kara's idea for the name of the newspaper, _The Kandor Chronicles,_ the name is a play on the word _candor_ , which can mean both _boldness_ and _truth_. Of course, no one knows Kandor is actually the capitol city of Krypton where Kara lived with her family as a child before she arrived on earth. Professor Willis walks by their group and stops and stares at the name and smiles and winks at Kara before she walks off to check on other groups.

After class ends, Kara gets lunch with her new friends Jimmy and Winn. When Kara returns to her dorm after her last class of the day and walks by Lynn's open door, Lynn jumps up to pull Kara into her room and unexpectedly tightly hugs.

Kara smiles and eeks out, "Oh, hey you! I like hugs, but you are cutting off my circulation a little."

Lynn laughs and let's go a bit and replies, "Sorry! So, Hey, I heard from Jimmy Olsen and some of the jocks that you are something else! You really figured out the trick to that cracked first pop quiz my sister gives out every term?"

Kara blushes and smiles and answers, "Yeah, I did!"

Lynn asks Kara, "Well, how about we go get pizza and ice cream at that dive a few blocks away I told you about before, Stevie-O's that I still insist has the best pizza around town to celebrate that fete?"

Kara answers, "Sure, just let me go change. I will be right back."

The girls sit in a booth in the back of the dive bar chatting and laughing and chewing on pizza slices until Kara freezes when she overhears and looks and sees a tall handsome blond-haired man in a well-tailored suit picking up a pizza and salad under the order name of Willis. Lynn catches Kara's elsewhere stare and waves to her brother-in-law.

When he walks over to them with a smile on his face, Lynn jumps up and kisses him on the cheek.

"Hey Nicky! Mother missed you the other night! Of course, you probably heard we kind of ditched her. Anyways, Meet CJ's new star pupil, Kara Danvers!"

Kara notices how this _Nicky_ man checks out her chest before he looks up at her face. In her mind, she automatically judges this dude to be a sleazy creep. Clearly, he is not good enough for Cat.

He reaches his hand out to her, "Oh, hi, Kara is it? I'm Nicholas Willis, Professor Willis' husband. She did mention in her words, a _brazen_ Keira girl, who didn't fall for that trick page of true or false questions she always includes on the first pop quiz. It's rare when a student can surprise my wife. She likes the challenge of things like that. She was _extra_ _feisty_ when I first met up with her at her office earlier."

That sounded like a comment about sexual intimacy that Kara really did not need to hear either right now or ever. The fact that this guy publicly says inappropriate things about his wife to people he doesn't really know is a second strike against him with Kara.

Lynn notices Kara's lingering glare and eye roll as he walks away. She shakes her hand in front of Kara's face and says, "Hello! I know he's a bit of a dick, but my sister still loves him. He flirts, but he won't stray. He loves Cat too."

Without much conviction, Kara looks at Lynn and half smiles. "Okay. I believe you."

Lynn knows she may be wrong about how devoted Nicky truly is to her sister. But, she wants a romantic chance with Kara. She's not going to let Kara think there's any trouble in paradise in Cat's marriage when she knows Kara has at least a bit of an idol crush on Cat. She doesn't want Kara to think she could have an actual chance of something more than friendship with Cat at some point down the road.

After a few minutes of eating more pizza, Kara asks, "Hey Lynn, I heard you refer to your sister as CJ before. Is that another nickname she likes? What's the J stand for?"

Lynn answers, "Oh, you're right, I do call my sister CJ sometimes. Her middle name is Jane for my father's mother, our grandma Janey. My father died when I was little, but our grandma Janey only just passed away a few years ago. Cat looks like her quite a bit and calling her CJ helps us remember how our grandma Janey was usually nicer to us than our own mother was as we were growing up. I'm kind of the only one who ever calls Cat by that nickname."

Kara responds, "Oh! Well, I'm truly sorry for your losses. It's nice that Cat reminds you of your grandma. It seems like both her and Cat have influenced how awesome of a person you are!"

Lynn smiles at Kara now. "Thank you! That means a lot coming from you, Kara. I think that you are pretty awesome too. Actually, you are both pretty and awesome! Oh, gawd. I'm sorry that sounded like a junior high level pick up line."

Kara blushes and smiles back at Lynn  "It's cool. You are pretty too."

When they get back to the dorm, Kara initiates a hug this time. Lynn is very willing to lean into that hug before Kara quickly let's go to head back to her room to study. Kara is not naive. She realizes that Lynn probably has a small crush on her, but she does still have her boyfriend, Mike, back at home. Plus, she definitely has a small crush on Cat herself even though she doubts that anything could happen with Cat. Honestly, she would like to just be friends with both of the sisters and focus on her schoolwork for now. Getting romantically involved with either one of them would be both _complicated_ and _messy_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: In 2017, DEO Lab visit with Aunt Alex.  
> In 1999, Cat and Kara run into each other at the Campus library. 
> 
> There will likely be a few short time jumps in both the past and present after the next chapter. I'm not going to do a whole lot more with the Journalism class/classmate stuff as this is primarily a romantic Cat/Kara centered story. What happens with Carolyn/Lynn does matter, but it will be shown to be mostly one-sided/unrequited. Kara cares for her for sure just not necessarily the same way as she will be shown to care for Cat.


	6. Saturday Studies Part 1

* * *

 

**Third Saturday in September 1999 National City University Quad and Library**

 

Partly, because she's an alien, Kara is the very epitome of a morning person. She doesn't tend to sleep a lot and never sleeps in late even on the weekends. She likes to get up right at the crack of dawn and open the window shades and panes when possible wherever she is and feel the energizing beams of the earth's yellow sun rejuvenate her body's Kryptonian cells. The morning air helps her come alive with anticipation for whatever unexpected surprises the day may bring. Her college roommate is not a morning person at all and hangs up a black divider sheet in their room every night before she goes to bed. Kara laughs at that, but she understands it too.

This particular Saturday morning at dawn, Kara climbs out of bed and stretches a bit by the window in the dark of the room. She stands up to open the shades. She then does a few hundred push-ups and sit-ups at a regular pace, not super speed as her roommate is in the room. As soon as she gets up from her workout about an hour later, she looks out the window, spots Professor Cat Willis as she heads into the library with a stack of books and papers that overflow in her arms. Kara turns and sees several of her own school books on her desk and tosses them in her backpack to take them to the library. She quickly makes her way to the dorm showers and cleans herself up. She then gets ready for an individual Saturday morning study session at the University's library.

Kara planned to go to the library in a few hours after going for her usual weekend morning run and eating a big breakfast, but when she sees Professor Willis that morning it motivates her to head over earlier. It's actually a great time to study, too, as not many students get up and go to the library early on the weekends. On her way to the library, she stops off at the closest Dining Hall and grabs breakfast on a few paper take out plates. She steps outside and walks closer to the library before she sits on a bench to eat under the shimmering glow of the morning sun. She looks all around and sees no one at the moment so she eats at super speed.

When she gets to the almost empty library, Kara realizes she can probably easily run into her Professor. If she holds a stack of books in her hands while she does, it won't look too suspicious at all that she means to run into her, right? She may not even need to use her powers to track her down.

At the same time that Kara searches for Cat in the library, Lynn, in her workout clothes, goes to knock on Kara's dorm room door to ask her if she wants to go for a morning run.

Kara's grouchy roommate answers the door and coughs out, "What?"

Lynn asks, "Oh, Is Kara not here?"

Kara's roommate loudly barks out, "NO!"

She begins to shut the door in Lynn's face when Lynn holds her arm out to stop her. "Wait, do you have any idea where she is?"

Kara's roommate turns around and looks at Kara's side of the room. She pulled the divider back to close the window shade Kara left up. "Ugh, no. Not really. Normally, she goes for a long morning run on the weekends, but her workout sweats are hanging over her bed. It looks like her backpack and books are gone. So, maybe she went to the library?"

Lynn moves back from the door. "Okay. Great! Thank you!"

Kara's roommate closes the door before Lynn finishes speaking. Lynn is glad Kara's roommate at least had a clue where Kara might be. As she walks away from Kara's room, Lynn gets a text from Cat that asks her to bring her a coffee to the library. Lynn thinks to herself that's fine as she is on her way to try and find Kara there anyways. She goes back to her room and changes into jeans and throws a t-shirt over her workout tank top. She packs some books herself so she can sit and study and hopefully talk with Kara.

She makes her way to a small cafe a few blocks from campus and grabs a coffee for Cat, herself and Kara. She doesn't know how Kara takes her coffee so she brings sugar and creamers and a cup of milk. Normally, the library doesn't allow hot drinks but she is taking them to the top floor with the study rooms. Also, the security guy knows she's Professor Willis' sister so he always lets her sneak by with coffee.

Meanwhile, Kara just spent almost an hour scouring four floors of shelves with no luck of locating her Professor. She thinks she may have just returned books and left. She grabs some Journalism related books and a copy of today's _National_ _City_ _Tribune_ off the holder racks. She tries to see if she can locate her with her x-ray vision. She looks up and spots her professor as she walks around the fifth floor. Kara eagerly races up the stairs to the next floor.

Cat paces the currently empty fifth floor back and forth with a pen in her mouth and papers she needs to correct in her hands as she waits for Lynn to bring her her coffee. Kara carefully opens the staircase door to the fifth floor runs through it with the stack of books and newspaper in her hands keeping her from noticing Cat who walks right into her as she's not looking either.

The books go flying as well as Cat's papers as Kara falls backwards on the floor, but partially onto her backpack and pulls Cat down with her as she loses her balance. The pen hanging from Cat's mouth falls out as her body presses into Kara's. Cat nearly shrieks as she fears she's stabbed Kara, but, surprisingly, notices how the pen just bounces off of her and rolls onto the floor near them.

Cat finds her face now planted on top of Kara's chest as Kara eeks out, "Oh, I'm so sorry Professor Willis! Are you okay?"

An incredulous Cat/Professor Willis looks up at Kara and laughs out, "Keira, really. Am I okay? I knocked you over and you apologize to me? Of course, I'm okay! You broke my, well, our fall. Are you okay?"

As she feels Cat's weight against her and closeness to her, Kara nods. She nervously answers in labored breaths, "I'm fine, but we should probably get up now before anyone sees us like this."

Cat nods in agreement. As she does that, the elevator door on their floor opens. In a hurry to lift herself off of Kara, Cat accidentally gropes Kara's very firm breasts. Kara gasps. Cat catches how Kara's nipples harden at her light touch over Kara's thin shirt. She pulls her hands off Kara just as fast as she feels them and lifts herself up. Once she gets up, she turns and sees Lynn with an angry scowl on her face.

Cat nervously laughs. "Hello, Lynn. I promise this isn't what it looks like."

Kara jumps up, smiles and adds, "Hey, Lynn! I raced out of the staircase with a stack of books in my hands without seeing what was in front of me and your sister wasn't looking either and we just kind of just fell over each other."

For some reason, Lynn doesn't say anything in response to either of them. She just has a blank look on her face. She places the coffee tray down on a study table, takes her own drink and turns and presses the elevator button to go back down. It takes both Cat and Kara almost a full minute to process that Lynn just left. Cat picks up her pen and papers. Kara picks her books and newspaper up off of the floor and stacks them on a table. She pulls a chair out and throws her backpack down.

Kara looks at Cat and rambles out, "I'm going to run down the stairs and try to catch Lynn to talk to her, but I will come back in and up here to study. Can you keep an eye on those for me? Also, don't worry! I know you didn't mean to grab onto me the way you did. It was all _simply_ an accident."

Cat nods, but wonders in her head if her action was really an accident. She could have lowered her hands to the floor and pushed herself up from there versus feeling up her student and what else were they _friends?_  She knows Kara and Lynn are friends and that Lynn wants to be more than that with Kara. She didn't mean to upset her . She didn't even do anything wrong. She wasn't trying to seduce Kara. Still, Cat is thankful only Lynn saw what happened between her and Kara.

As Kara races down the stairs at super speed to try and catch Lynn, her flip phone will not stop vibrating in her pocket. As she runs outside the library's front doors, she flips it open and sees it's Mike. She reluctantly hits the answer button with her right thumb and hears, "Hey baby, baby babe! I missssss you!"

Before she answers him, Kara sees that Lynn sits on a bench on the Campus quad and sips her coffee as tears roll down her face.

She asks Mike, "Are you seriously drunk this early in the morning?!?

Mike answers, "Whaaa, Nah, baby, babe, no. I'm just a little hungover. Plus, I'm hung and hungry for you! Can't you talk me through my need? What are you wearing?"

An aggravated Kara shouts into her phone, "I'm busy!" and just hangs up and closes the phone. Of course her phone won't stop vibrating again as she runs over to talk to Lynn.

 

* * *

**The** **Next Day - Saturday Morning  2017   Kara's Home / The Grant Home / DEO**

 

Even after the small amount of jetlag from the flight back to the United States from London, the quick move into this new apartment with her kids a few days ago, her fast transition into a new job and the dinners out the last two nights with Cat and all their kids, Kara still wakes up as early as she usually does that next morning. She's even full of extra energy. But, she's also anxious and nervous now about her kids and Cat's kids possibly being related.

She knows after she grabbed those frozen yogurt spoons last night with a little bit of Carter's and Clarissa's DNA on them, there's a good chance she will find out the truth today. If her suspicions are confirmed, breaking the truth to her own two kids and to Cat and her possibly other two kids will be difficult. The truth telling will have to wait, however, as it's a complicated and rather delicate matter for so many reasons. Still, it, likely, will need to happen sooner than later.

If Kara's right, she needs to try and figure out how this even happened. Of course, she remembers what happened with her and Cat as well as what happened with her and Carolyn all in the same few days. Still, the thought that she a female alien, produced children with two non-alien women who are sisters is just _uncanny_. Still, it somehow makes much more sense that her intimate times with Cat and Carolyn produced her and their children versus her quick romps with a usually drunk Mike.

Kara does a rather intense super speed workout of a few hundred push-ups and sit-ups in the living room of her new apartment as the sun pours in the room at dawn. The exercise helps ease and push the rising frustrations and tensions out of her body and head. After her workout, she takes a mixture of a super hot and super cold shower as that's the only way she can feel temperatures on her skin.

In the shower, she feels a bit of sexual tension as she thinks of how Cat both brushed her back through her shirt and held onto her hair last night after she pulled her up towards herself. The frigid and icy cold water of the shower is the only thing that helps give her release from those lingering, longing feelings to touch Cat.

She wants Cat to touch her in those same and other much more intimate places once again and maybe again and again. After a few minutes, she shakes herself free from those naughty thoughts. She turns the frigid shower to hot for just about thirty seconds before she turns the whole shower off.

After her shower, Kara gets dressed and ready for the day at the DEO in Alex's lab. She pulls on a loose pair of navy blue sweatpants and a light blue t-shirt and navy zip up hoodie over it. She slides on a pair of comfortable running sneakers as well. She will give blood and run through tests herself alongside the kids so they don't feel too much like lab experiments themselves. She takes the spoons from last night out of her jacket pocket and places them in a ziplock bag and then into her purse.

Kara walks into her new apartment's kitchen and gets out what she needs to prepare the special fruit bomb pancake breakfast with bacon and eggs on the side for her and her kids. As she hopes, the strong smell of the breakfast food cooking wakes her kids right up.

Cam stumbles into the kitchen first. He combs a hand through his messy bed head hair, yawns and touches his mom's shoulder and asks, "Ma, what's all this?"

Kara turns, smiles at Cam and shakes a spatula in her hand at him and says "Hey, you!"

As soon as an equally groggy-eyed, yawning CJ joins them, Kara actually answers, "Well, it's our first Saturday in this new apartment, so this is a little celebration breakfast for us as a family. Plus, we are going to see your Aunt Alex at her science lab this morning. I know I already told you about that. But, what I didn't tell you as that we are doing some physical fitness tests together again like we have done before a few years ago. You kids and I need to consume a lot of calories beforehand so we don't either faint or otherwise get sick."

CJ laughs and then responds, "So, what you're saying mom is that you are _bribing_ us with good food so we will be Aunt Alex's guinea pigs for whatever crazy fitness experiments she's set up for us this time?"

Kara answers, "Okay, Yes. Something like that. But, you know you love checking out things in Aunt Alex's lab."

About half an hour after they finish eating breakfast, Kara and her kids arrive at the DEO's regular _human_ _visitor_ entrance, where there's only a small decal sign on the glass of the door that reads National City Physical Sciences Laboratory Space Number 29. Kara knows it's a cover for where they really are. The kids together push the bell on the door and a lab coat clad with all black clothes underneath Alex Danvers opens the door and steps out to greet her sister and her niece and nephew.

This is the first time the kids are seeing their aunt since they arrived back in the United States. Eliza had met up with Kara and the kids at the airport. Alex, however, was busy with an important work project that actually had her stationed in Metropolis most of the past few weeks. She had just arrived home from a red eye flight when Kara called her yesterday morning.

Alex thought that today she would maybe not go into work and get to relax, but she wanted to see her niece and nephew. Kara's concerns about their biological parentage made Alex willing to help out anyway she can with DEO resources, which Kara had free unfettered access to because she consults on alien cases from time to time.

Cameron runs right up to his aunt to tightly hug her and says, "Hey, Aunt Alex! I missed you so much! Guess what?"

Alex answers, "What? Did you finish all your special pancakes before your sister?"

CJ steps over with her hands behind her back and Alex realizes she holds something hidden.

CJ answers for Cam, "No, he didn't. Mom almost beat me to the finish, but she didn't either. What he meant to say was we brought some of mom's special fruit bomb pancakes for you!"

CJ pulls a large round, plastic container out from behind her back. Alex smiles widely as she takes them. "Oh, wow, yummy! I've missed these soooo much! These are one of the few things your mom never burned when we were learning how to cook together my senior year and her freshman year of college. Uhh, I mean your mom was around during part of my senior year of college and I flew out to Metropolis to visit her during her first year of college. We had sister nights with a lot of cooking by trial and error back then."

Even with her quick correction, CJ caught her Aunt's _unintended_ slip up. CJ always thought that her Aunt Alex and her mom went to different schools for college. Midvale is a few hours away from National City University where Alex went to school so their mom couldn't have been around Alex too often unless she definitely lived in National City too. Maybe her mom took classes at NCU too before she got pregnant and had them. She would find out from her Aunt if possible. She would figure it out some other way if not.

When Alex talks about their cooking by trial and error days, Kara suddenly remembers the thick National City University envelope she saw the courier drop off with Cat's secretary yesterday afternoon. She's now also nervous about whatever Cat had sent to her from NCU.

Alex turns and sees Kara looks a bit distressed. She tells the kids to go in ahead of her and Kara and visit their uncle Winn. After the kids are inside Alex side hugs her sister and asks, "Sis, are you okay?"

Kara answers, "Yes, Alex. It's just been a busy week. I guess I'm a little more tired than I thought. I do need to talk to you about a few things."

Alex holds out her phone with the picture she found of Cat and her two kids and tells her sister, "Yes. I think we definitely do need to talk about a few things and people too."

As Alex pulls away from the side hug, Kara timidly responds, "Uhh...Okay. Yes. We do and we will."

Alex and Kara then go inside to join up with Kara's kids and Winn.

Meanwhile at The Grant house:

Every Saturday morning as dawn breaks, Clarissa and Carter run the length of National City's beach a few times together. They tend to go to school early on weekdays to run on the high school track. Carter and Clarissa are two of the fastest runners on their high school's track and field team. Unlike them, Cat, herself, is not much of an early morning person without her hot coffee to get her going for the day. Sure, she will always continuously check beeping news alerts on her phone, but she tries to take the weekends off and sleep in a bit whenever she can.

This Saturday morning is no different for Carter and Clarissa even after hanging out with their new friends last night they don't sleep in. They head out for their run and after a few hours come back in with iced coffee for themselves and a not as hot as it needs to be latte from the waterfront Noonan's cafe for their mom. Of course they have to heat it up in the microwave.

As they wait for their mother's latte to heat up, Carter grouses, "I wish I had heat vision like Superman. It would be so much easier to heat this latte up for mom and she would actually think it was hot enough for her liking."

Callie laughs. "Carter, you almost always say that. You would probably burn holes in everything though. That would not work out to mom's liking at all."

He laughs back and steps into his sisters space and jokingly, lightly taps her arm with his fist.

Once the latte is sufficiently heated, they are about to go and see if their mom is up yet as it is only 8:30am now, when they are shocked to see their mom in her pajama slacks and a hooded sweatshirt sitting at the table on the patio in the backyard looking wide awake. She nurses a coffee cup already as she pours through a few folders of papers that look like a telephone book's listings. As her kids walk up to her, Clarissa sees the large yellow manila envelope with the National City University stamp.

Carter kisses his mom's temple and puts the fresh latte down and says, "Hey, Mom! You're up early for your day off! We brought you an actual latte. I'm going to go take a shower and come back after and sit out here with you since it's such a nice morning."

Cat replies, "Okay, son. See you in a bit."

After Carter runs off, Clarissa says, "Good morning, mom! You are not trying to work on our college applications, without us, are you?"

Cat responds, "Hi, sweetheart! No, of course not. We will all work on those together in a few months. Though, there's no major rush on completion of that particular task. My babies are getting too big! You still have another year of high school to go after this term is over. I don't want you going anywhere, yet. Come here."

Clarissa steps up to her mom and Cat pulls her in for a tight hug and kisses her daughter's cheek. After Clarissa pulls back she points at the paper and asks another question, "So what, then, is all this National City University stuff?"

"Oh, nothing really important. I used to teach Journalism classes at National City University before you and Carter were born. I was just checking some things from back then. I might teach again someday. Who knows?"

Clarissa continues, "Is there something specific you are looking at here?"

Cat hesitantly lies to her daughter, "Just looking at the demographic numbers of women and men who took my classes back then and going to compare them to today's numbers of young college aged women and men interested in the Journalism field."

Clarissa responds, "Oh, that's kind of cool. Hey, I'm going to go take a shower now too. I just wanted to make sure you were okay, mom. I know you usually like to sleep in a little longer on your actual days off."

Cat smiles at her daughter. "Okay, honey. Yes, sometimes I do like to sleep in. But, when I have a new task to do I get overly motivated to work on it when it's fresh in my mind."

Clarissa's not entirely buying into her mom's explanation though of what she's looking through and why. Her mom's looking for something else that is important. She wonders if maybe Cam and CJ's mom or their aunt took one of her mom's Journalism classes.

After Clarissa walks off, Cat pulls her glasses up and wipes her eyes with her finger tips as she is tired. She then pulls her glasses back down on her face and looks through the enrollment records of the Fall 1999 school year for _Journalism_ _101_. She had just finished sorting class piles by term and year when her kids had walked up to her. Cat spots a _Karla_ _Daniels_ and a _Keira_ _Smith_ on the enrollment list for that term, but neither of those names seem to be the one she's searching for. She wishes she could remember the girl's last name.

Cat goes back to look at Fall 1997 and Fall 1998 just to be sure, but finds no Kara(s) listed. She thinks that this is really odd. She peruses the Fall 1999 list and recognizes two male names that she thinks knew Kara, James Olsen and Winslow Schott. She immediately realizes that James Olsen is both one of Clark Kent's friends and a photojournalist she uses on a temporary basis so he probably will likely not tell her the truth about Kara.

Winslow actually worked for CatCo for a few years after college. She remembers him as being the IT whiz kid with the weird hair who could solve any technology related problem. She's not sure where he is now, but she's sure she can find a phone number easily enough. If he doesn't pan out as someone with information on Kara, she will call Perry White about Kara's employment there and any records he has on file of a possible other name, though she would rather avoid doing that. She could hire an actual private investigator to do a full background check, but that seems a bit much at this point.

At the DEO, Winn's phone starts to ring just a moment after Alex and Kara meet up with him and take Kara's kids back to her lab. Winn looks down and is unsure about answering when he sees the caller ID says _C_.  _Grant_. There's only one _C. Grant_  he knows. His old and Kara's new boss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope to post the next chapter in the next week or two. Both parts will continue directly from this chapter on the same days. Purposely making it a little bit difficult for Cat to find out who Kara is.


	7. Saturday Studies Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. This is dialogue heavy to help advance the plot a bit. There's not a ton of interaction with Cat and Kara, but it dives into their internal feelings a little more. Only mentions the kids this time. Some interesting and unexpected twists and turns here. I usually like to flip which side I start on from chapter to chapter, but I think this flows better leaving it the same as last chapter Past then Present. I hope none of them seem too Out of Character. They are in character for my story purposes.

* * *

**Same Saturday September 1999  National City University Quad and Library**

 

After Kara leaves Cat to run off and track down Lynn, Cat sits down at the study table Kara left her books on and pulled a chair out from for her backpack. She keeps an eye on Kara's things as she starts to correct the student papers she held in her hands before Kara bumped into her and knocked them both over.

She hums and smiles as she remembers that moment and how close their bodies were pressed together. She's only in bliss for a few brief milliseconds when all of a sudden a chair is roughly pulled out from right next to her. The noise of the chair as it scrapes the floor startles her. She holds a shaking hand to her chest over her heart.

Leslie Willis sits down in that other chair next to Cat and chirps out, "Just Relax, _KittyCat!_  I'm not here to bite you. Besides which, my _bite_ isn't worse than my _bark_ , unlike _yours!_ "

Cat rolls her eyes directly at her much younger sister-in-law and slowly lowers her hand from her chest as she responds, "Well, lucky you didn't succeed at giving me a heart attack with that unneeded scare!"

Leslie sarcastically retorts, "You would need to have a _heart_ first!"

Cat snaps out, "How _dare_ _you_ insinuate I have no heart! I am _happily_ married to your brother. He holds my heart that does very much _exist!_ He would not be happy with you scaring me half to death. Why are you here?"

Leslie answers, "I came to meet some friends in one of the private study rooms when I noticed your collision with that little blonde ray of sunshine classmate of mine. Watching you two, I realized it seems the sapphic vibes I had about my darling sister-in-law were not so ridiculous after all. Nicky always told me you and Lo-lo (Lois Lane) were just an unfounded rumor, but the sparks between you and what did you call her in class the other day, _Keira_ _Denver_ are flying off the charts!"

Cat proffers what she believes are convincing lies back, "You are _insane_ , Leslie! I am Keira's professor. She is my student. Besides, she is not gay and neither am I! I know you have always harbored pa big crush on me, yourself, but get over yourself and that foolish crush. I am not interested. I am your professor. Even more importantly, _I am_ your sister-in-law. I love my husband, your brother, Nicholas!

Leslie retorts with laughter, "Ha! Don't flatter yourself! I'm curious what were you humming and smiling about, if not Keira? Surely, you can tell me."

"You're wrong. There's nothing to tell. Move along now!"

Leslie declines to just walk away, "Nope! We are not done talking yet, but I understand your eagerness to shut me up. I just need to make sure that you have no interest and I have your green light to make a play for that delightfully _doe-eyed_  girl?"

Cat lifts an eyebrow as she angrily barks back, "You wouldn't dare! You would _ruin_ her!"

Leslie snorts out, "Not as much as you could _destroy_ her like a crash and burn trainwreck! _KUNG POW!_  Why so snippy about this, KittyCat? I'm actually single. Maybe she's single too. Perhaps, she's even ready to _sexually_ mingle. I have more of a chance with her than you do. Like you said before, you are happily taken as you are _oh, so in love_ with my brother."

Cat laughs back as she tries to bursts Leslie's bubble, "Actually, no, you don't have either an actual or better chance with her. She has a _serious_ boyfriend. Besides, didn't you see how Lynn reacted earlier?"

Leslie responds with bravado in her voice, "Oh, I think the girl must have left her _allegedly serious_ boy toy behind in middle of nowhereville because I haven't seen him around campus with her. So, technically, she is available. And, yes, both you Grant gals certainly always have fuck me or let me fuck you eyes on display while you interact with that girl. Maybe I've seen her stare dreamily back at both of you. Also, if looks could kill, yes, Lynn's _jealous rage_ eyes earlier would have already snuffed you out, KittyCat!"

An irritated Cat responds, "Well, Lynn, like you are, is also a tad overdramatic when she misreads a situation. Let me reiterate since you are being a bit dense today, _LESLIE!_  Absolutely _NOTHING_ unseemly is going on between Keira and I."

Leslie snarkily replies, "Okay, KittyCat. Maybe I will bow out for a brief minute and see if Lynn has any game before I make my own checkmate play for this naive, yet _delectable_ girl. I'm sure I could _vastly_   _broaden_ her sexual horizons. And, KittyCat?"

Ignoring the students who she sees have just sat down on the other end of the study room, Cat loudly stammers out, " _WHAT is IT?_ What more could you have to say?"

As she tries to actually protect Cat's privacy, Leslie replies in a much lower voice, "If you do stay away from either unintentionally or intentionally feeling Kara up again or getting too close to her I guess I will keep my mouth zipped around Nicky about your little, _potentially_ mutual, crush."

Cat stands her ground as she sternly answers in a near whispered voice, "Like I said earlier, you clearly have quite a _vivid_ imagination in regards to what you believe you saw happening between us. Nevertheless, I will take your advisory warning into _consideration_. Now, if you don't mind, I need to get back to what I was working on before you so _rudely_ interrupted me."

Leslie stands up and points two fingers out in a v formation at Cat and back to her own eyes to indicate she will be watching her. She then strides away to the elevator. Once Cat hears the elevator ding and the doors open and close, she breathes a huge sigh of relief that Leslie is now gone. She hates the feeling of being antagonized even with slightly justified, but unproveable threats by her much younger sister-in-law.

She knows she need not worry much. Her husband would never accept Leslie's word over hers without actual evidence to back up her claims. That hideous moniker Leslie calls her by, KittyCat, truly irritates her. It makes her want to _claw_ Leslie's vocal chords out whenever she hears it. She doesn't out of respect for her husband.

Meanwhile:  
As Lynn hears Kara approach the bench with Kara's phone's loud vibrations buzzing in her pocket, she wipes her eyes sniffles and speaks first, "You should probably answer that phone. It might be my sister calling you for a _secret_ rendezvous in one of the more private reserved library study rooms."

An irritated Kara shakes her balled fists as she stands behind the bench Lynn sits on. She softly, but sternly speaks up, "You're wrong. It's not her. Come on. She doesn't even have my phone number."

Kara pauses and moves to sit down on the bench next to Lynn as Lynn mumbles quietly to herself, " _Yet_."

Kara hears her, but ignores that under breath scoff as she continues, "Lynn, I'm so sorry. I swear to Rao...uhh I mean I swear to _YOU_ that _NOTHING_ is going on between your sister and I. We just fell down in an awkward position. She has a husband and I have a boyfriend, remember?"

Lynn looks over at Kara. "Oh, Yes! I do remember. Both my sister and you are totally straight as you are both seriously taken by great men. But, if you both were single you likely would be singing a different tune. Especially since I heard your gasp back there. I saw how you gave my sister heart eyes when she was on top of you practically feeling you up."

Kara breathes heavily in and out as she responds in a huff, "Honestly, I was just so shocked that she grabbed my chest and that was totally by accident!"

"But, did you enjoy her touching you like that? Because it looked like it!"

A stunned Kara shouts out, "Uhh, _NO! Of course not!_ I'm not attracted to nor romantically interested in your sister. I certainly wouldn't break up someone's marriage. I'm not a _home-wrecker!_ "

In her head, Kara knows that's not entirely true. She is most definitely sexually attracted to Cat. When they touched earlier, she felt electric tingles all over her insides. If she was human, there would have been goosebumps all over her arms. Still, she can't ruin two budding friendships over a silly crush, not when she's not so great at making friends because of her biggest secrets to begin with. Also, she wouldn't ever get into a romantic or sexual relationship with a married person, whether a man or a woman.

Lynn nonchalantly relents, "Okay. I believe you. You are too sweet to do something like break up a marriage by having an affair with a married woman. But, really, Kara, what do you want with Cat and I?"

It takes Kara a few minutes before she looks directly at Lynn with a half smile and nervously responds, "I, uhh, thought that you and I were building up a good friendship, maybe even starting up a _great_ friendship. I don't want anything, but friendship right now, Lynn. I'm just so busy with school and keeping up with my boyfriend back home. Cat is my professor and mentor and I think she is becoming my friend as well."

Lynn sighs and then sarcastically stammers out, "Yes, that's fine. We can all be just _chummy_ as good and eventually great _friends_."

Kara ignores the clear sarcasm in Carolyn's tone as she slightly begs, "So, Lynn, will you please return with me to the library and study with me? You will see that nothing is happening between Cat and I. Later, we can even grab a late lunch at Stevie-O's, sans your sister, just the two of us?"

Lynn nods and then nonchalantly answers, "Okay. Sounds like a reasonable plan."

Lynn stands up and gives Kara a surprise kiss on the cheek. Kara assumes it's just a friendly peace gesture, but she felt some tingles the moment she felt Lynn lips brush her face. Kara blushes and smiles brightly at Lynn, but she doesn't even _attempt_ to return the cheek kiss. Neither of them say anything about it. She doesn't want to lead Lynn on after their talk about friendship. Still, Kara's head is spinning in dizzying feelings now knowing that she's somewhat attracted to both of these two very unique, yet wonderful sisters.

Lynn looks away from Kara as they walk back to the library together. Maybe she expected a cheek kiss back. Kara tries not to think much of it. When the girls get back to the study floor of the library, Kara heads off to the restroom to give Cat and Lynn a private moment to talk to each other. She hopes they can patch things up.

After her earlier unwanted confrontation with Leslie shakes her up, Cat decides to just bite the bullet and apologize to Lynn first. She promises her that nothing is going on with her and Kara. The word _yet_ crosses Lynn's mind again. Still, she lets that thought go. She tells Cat she's sorry for getting upset and storming out so quickly. She admits that she knows Kara is just a friend to both of them. Cat agrees. Of course they might both hope for more than just friendship with Kara, but they will keep that hope to themselves.

Cat posits a peace offering to Lynn, "Hey, why don't you take Kara to the concert we usually go to every year for your birthday?"

Lynn very excitedly jumps up to grab Cat's shoulders. "Really? Wow! You're sure though? It's always one of our big sisterly bonding experiences of the year."

Cat affirmatively replies, " _Yes!_  I am sure, sis. Boy bands are better for you young kids to enjoy together anyways. We can figure out something else fun to do together before the end of the semester and year. Plus, I just got the tickets in the mail today. Here, just take them."

Lynn smiles as she takes the envelope with the tickets in it from Cat. As Kara returns to the study table, she notices how Lynn actually smiles now as she talks with Cat. It makes her feel better inside about everything that happened earlier and the rivalry of the two sisters for her affections. Part of her welcomes that rivalry while another larger part wishes that was not happening with them.

Kara curiously asks, "What's going on? Everything _good_?"

Cat quickly answers before Lynn can, "Yes. Everything is better even. Lynn will tell you all about it later, I'm sure. Since there are more people here now why don't we get on with peacefully sitting here with our work and just study together."

Kara nods and smiles at Cat and Lynn as she quietly answers, "Okay. Sure. Great!"

Lynn gleefully smiles back at Kara.

A few hours later over a late lunch at their favorite pizza serving dive bar, Lynn flashes two Ticketmaster tickets for _'NSYNC_ at the National City Coliseum. She giddily tells Kara, "Guess who's going to see _'NSYNC_ with me in a few weeks?"

Kara jumps up to squeeze Lynn in a tight hug as she squeals out, "MEEEEE?!?"

Lynn enjoys the warm feeling of Kara's arms tightly wrapped around her even if they are kind of crushing her. After a moment, Kara releases Lynn and steps back from their hug and Lynn nods her head. They both smile brightly at each other and talk about their favorite _'NSYNC_ songs as they finish lunch. Lynn purposely doesn't let Kara know that the tickets are actually a gift from Cat.

 

* * *

**First Saturday in March 2017        DEO Lab / Cat Grant's Home**

 

Alex tasks Winn with matching Kara's Kryptonian genome piece by piece to Cameron and Callie's. She should have done it, herself, before now, but Kara didn't ever want the kids being dissected like lab rats. Kara didn't want the DEO knowing that much about them. When she first found out Alex worked for this agency, Kara wasn't sure this was a safe space.

She feared the DEO might use information about either her or her children to hurt her. But, now, with them potentially having other siblings and possibly developing powers, they need to know as much about the kids as they can. The DEO holds the best resources to help make that happen.

As Winn diligently works on the task Alex assigns him, he ignores Cat's first call and several after. He finally decides to answer his phone after a few hours of 30 or so missed calls and at least 20 short voicemails from Cat.

Reluctantly, he eventually hits the green accept button and speaks out with curiosity in his tone, "Hello, _Miss_ _Grant_?"

Cat replies with arrogance in her tone, "Yes, _Winsome_ , it is I, Miss Catherine Jane Grant, your former boss. It's nice of you to _finally_ answer your phone. As you must have caller ID, what happened the last few hours? Were you just _purposely_ ignoring me?"

Winn stutters as he responds, "Uhh...Umm...NO! Of course not! I'm actually at work at the moment and my phone was set on silent mode. I...uhh...just got a break now. So what can I...umm...help you with Miss Grant?"

"I need your _assistance_ with something important."

Winn responds with uncertainty in his voice, "Well, I can try. Is this an IT related concern at CatCo?"

"No. Actually, it is sort of a personal matter unrelated to CatCo. You may have access to some _pertinent_ information I need."

A hesitant Winn replies, "Oh! Umm, I really don't know if I can help you with a personal matter of yours. I don't want to be privy to something in your personal life that you might accuse me of leaking to other press outlets."

Cat snaps back at him, "Well, you signed an NDA that in the fine print extends beyond your time at CatCo on anything you either know or learn about me from personal interaction so you face a lawsuit if you release anything to other media outlets either accidentally or intentionally. Still, honestly, it is less to do with me, personally, and more to do with a former mutual acquaintance you may remember more than I do."

Winn again nervously replies, "Oh, yes, okay."

Cat responds, "Good. So, think back all the way to college if you can. I recall you have a sharp memory, forgetting details of the recent NDA you signed aside, so you should be able to do that, right?"

Winn finally makes the connection in his head that all this badgering by Cat may be about Kara. He knows Kara works for Cat now. He guesses Cat wants to know her former name. He knows Kara's original NCU college records were wiped and her name was later changed to protect her from Mike and his family among others. He realizes he needs to put his guard up and attempt to tell some convincing lies.

After his stalled moments of thought, where Cat calls out, " _HELLO!_  Earth to Winsome!!! Where are you?!?"

Winn coughs before he affirmatively answers, "Yes. I remember during my sophomore year I took your _Journalism_ _101_ course. I suppose this is something to do with that class?"

Winn knows Cat is headed in the direction of asking him about that so that is why he drops the bait before she can. He already knows he's not going to let himself get caught on her line. But, why not make her think she just might be able to reel him in hook, line and sinker. But, can he _sink_ her questioning? He will try his best.

An impressed Cat answers, "Yes. It is about one of your classmates. I think you were close friends. A blonde with long hair and blue eyes?"

Winn quickly responds, "Oh, yeah, umm, Siobhan's best friend, Leslie. What about her?"

Cat irritatedly replies, "NO! NO! NO! That's not the same young lady I'm thinking about from that class. Don't you remember any other standout blonde young ladies from back then? A _Keira_ something or other who sat right near you and Mr. Olsen in my class?"

Winn apologetically answers, "Oh, Uhh, I'm truly sorry, Miss Grant. I honestly can't remember many people from back then. I'm bad with names. Siobhan is my ex-girlfriend from that time so, of course, I remember her best friend's name."

Cat loudly sighs as she responds, "Oh, well. Thank you for finally answering my call even if you were really not very helpful at all. I hope if I do have some sort of major IT emergency at CatCo in the future you will answer much sooner."

Winn ignores the jab and politely replies, "Yes, Miss Grant! If you ever have a major technology related emergency just text me yourself or have someone else at CatCo text me IT 911 and I will do my best to help as soon as I get the alert texts. Anyways, have a nice day, Miss Grant."

"You as well, Winston."

Winn tries to correct her about his own name, but she hangs up as he starts to speak up. Still, he is thankful his _evasive_ tactics worked. He somehow doesn't realize Leslie is Cat's former sister-in-law and he just gave her another avenue to go down for answers.

As if on cue like how a bad penny turns up, Cat's phone rings almost immediately after she hangs up with Winn with Leslie Willis on the other side of the line.

Cat taps to answer and hears Leslie's screechy voice,  
"Hello, KitCat how ever are you doing, my dear sissy-in-law?"

Cat responds in an irritated huff,  
"Oh, so you have graduated to thinking you can call me a chocolate covered wafer, have you?"

Leslie amusedly answers, "Well, you are a unique mixture of rough and sweet sides. But, you are more rough on the outside than inside so KitKat candy bars don't really suit your personality as they are the reverse texture. But, I'm just trying to be playful with you sissy KittyCat!"

A now aggravated Cat responds, "You know I'm not really your sister, right? Not even your sister-in-law anymore. Further, I'm neither a kit nor a kitty. I'm not a _kitten_. I'm Cat Grant the reigning _Queen_ _of_ _All_ _Media_. Either call me Cat or don't call again at all."

Leslie laughs as she replies, "Reow, Meow! Ouch Why so harsh, today? I can hear that the sharp cat claws are reaching out to scratch. I get it Queenie Cat. I can be civil and call you whatever you want."

A still irritated Cat asks, "What is the purpose of this surprise call anyways?"

"So I will be stateside in three weeks in order to court more financial supporters for Livewire International Radio Broadcasting. I would like to visit my nephew and surrogate niece while I am in National City. I was going to call both of the kids myself to talk with them, but I just wanted to ask your permission first?"

Cat reluctantly agrees, "Okay, that's fine. Is there anything else on your mind?"

"Well, since you asked, I met with Elisha Stuart from _The_ _London_ _Gazette_ for a friendly lunch and it seems I somehow missed your _very_ _quiet_ , recent acquisition of Kara Kent for CatCo. Still, I have yet to see her name appear on any magazine bylines. I am amazed that you finally dug your cat claws into her after all these years of secretly hovering and unrequitedly pining from afar."

Cat responds, "That's true. I will not deny that I have always admired her journalistic skills and writing. Just between you and I, I have big plans for her to revitalize the _Tribune_  in addition to writing for _CatCo_   _Magazine_. I tried to woo her to CatCo repeatedly during the last five years, but, I, honestly, did not know what she even looked like until she came to interview for me a few short weeks back. Maybe you can solve a riddle for me though. I am not wrong, am I? Since you think I have been secretly watching over her and pining from afar, even when I, honestly, have done nothing of the sort, she is the _same_ _Kara_ from that _Journalism_ _101_ class long ago? She had another last name back then. Do you remember it?"

There's a brief pause before Leslie affirmatively answers, "Yes, you are _correct_ , Cat. Something that started with a 'D' I believe, but you always called her _Keira_ _Denver_ in class so I can't quite remember what her real last name was when the wrong one is so engrained in my mind. I do find it _odd_ that she would not just tell you the truth. I must confess some uncouth things to you about how I know the truth that she is the _same_ _Kara_."

Cat demands, "Tell me!"

Leslie hesitantly answers, "Don't be mad, but we _briefly_ dated."

A livid Cat shrieks out, "What? When? How? Why?"

Leslie continues, "We ran into each other in a dog park in Berlin about three years ago. Her and her two kids were temporarily living their one summer during a travel assignment she had with _The_ _London_ _Gazette_. Our German Shepherds sniffed each other and ran around together. I told her she looked like a girl I went to college with and she didn't try and deny it. She remembered my first name even. We had ice cream that afternoon with her kids. We had a few dinners alone during the next few weeks. We shared a few heated moments. We never got fully together between the sheets because of her nervousness of getting too serious with someone when she had her kids to think about. Something else that happened that immediately stopped our budding romance as well."

Cat curiously asks, "Care to inform me on what that something else was that stopped her?"

Leslie dejectedly answers,  
"Well, it was actually someone else."

Cat demands, "Who?"

Leslie shouts out, " _IT_ _WAS_ _YOU!_ "

Cat confusedly inquires, "Wait, What? How?"

Leslie continues, "Well, we veered away from telling each other our last names when we first met. That backfired pretty quickly for me. I took her to a Berlin Radio Broadcasters dinner about three weeks after we started dating. One of the men I introduced her to was from the States. He told her how he thought it was a brilliant idea for her to get close to Cat Grant's former sister-in-law, Leslie Willis, of _Livewire_ _International_ _Radio_ _Broadcasting_ , in case she ever wanted a great print media job with CatCo in the States. Kara pulled me outside and said she needed to leave. She couldn't continue on with what we were doing. She said if she ever wanted to work for CatCo she would earn a job there on her own merits. I had a few too many drinks. I stupidly asked her if she still had feelings for you after all these years. I said if she did those feelings would help her land a job with you easier than anything I could do for her. She slapped me across the face so hard I swear she almost broke my jaw. Then she raced off into a cab. We haven't spoken since. Not my best break up."

An angered Cat responds, "You, can visit the kids, but you can only come by the house to see them. I don't want you stopping into CatCo and potentially running into and upsetting Kara."

Leslie reluctantly agrees, "Fine. That's fair enough. As long as she's not at your house when I stop in."

"She won't be. There is still _nothing_ _unseemly_ going on between us."

Leslie just can't help herself from giving her sarcastic response, "But, you probably want there to be!"

Cat sternly answers, "You know very well that I don't engage in romantic dalliances with employees even though our kids do get along well. My kids seem to like her and her kids seem to like me."

Leslie laughs before she asks, "Oh, so you've met each other's kids? Sounds _serious_. You never let anyone meet your kids. I will just have to ask Carter and Clarissa to give me the _big_ _scoop_."

Cat huffs out, "Well, they all go to school together so, yes, we have all met. Good luck with getting any scoops from my kids! Their _loyalty_ lies with me."

An unfazed Leslie answers, "You know the four kids are probably tag team conspiring to get their two moms together. They would probably _welcome_ my help. I'm sure none of them know of your _history_ with Kara."

Cat responds, "There's _no_ _history_ with Kara for them to know anything of, Leslie! I would appreciate it if you neither assist nor encourage them if they are trying to set me and Kara up. I would rather they not be disappointed as nothing good can come of that kind of scheme."

Leslie hesitantly agrees, "Fine. I won't fuel whatever matchmaking campaign the four kids may be working on. But, Cat, you need to let go and let yourself be happy for once. Even if Kara is an employee now, you are the overall boss of your company and empire. You can do whatever you want. You can date whoever you want even if they are an employee. I know you always put the kids first. In some ways, you have been unhappy since even before my brother died. That's a long time. If Kara can make you happy then just open yourself up to that possibility and let her do that."

Cat doesn't dignify Leslie with a response when she dryly answers, "Goodbye, Leslie" and just hangs up.

Leslie doesn't know Cat has already opened up to Kara again after all these years. She's fearful though of opening up anymore. She doesn't want to end up heartbroken again even when the past heartbreak was mostly her own fault. Still, she has waited so long for this unexpected second chance with Kara. She is worried about all the kids though. She didn't even think once about them potentially scheming to get her and Kara together. If she tries to start a romantic relationship with Kara and it doesn't work out, all the kids might be devastated.

Then again, they are all practically grown now. They just want their mothers to be happy. Cat does think Kara can make her happy if only Kara would tell her the truth about the past. If Cat can tell Kara the truth about her own past and present feelings and if Kara admits to the truth about why she concealed who she really was, then maybe they have a chance at something real. If Kara doesn't tell her the truth soon, Cat will keep digging and find out any other way she can.

Meanwhile back at the DEO Lab: After three hours of speed and strength and temperature gauging tests with the kids and a single hour of Kara displaying her powers in an enclosed safe space without the kids present for additional monitoring, a slightly exhausted Kara slowly steps into her sister's office next to her lab. The kids were sent home alone before Kara's solo exercise tests. She reluctantly promises them that her and their Aunt Alex will talk to them about the test results sometime later this week. She dreads that coming conversation.

Kara watches as Alex paces back in forth in front of a large computer screen on the wall.

When Alex hears Kara's soft footsteps behind her, she speaks up, "Hey Kara, I need to show you all of this. But first, are you ready for the big Maury Povich like paternity reveal?"

Kara slightly laughs and nods as. "That's really not funny, Alex! This is serious! And it's more of a maternity reveal anyways."

"Yeah. Actually, it is quite a _major_ maternity reveal. Okay. So first things first. When it comes to Clarissa Grant you are one of her mothers. Next, when it comes to Carter Grant you are one of his mothers."

A slightly stunned Kara falls into one of Alex's office chairs and tells herself and Alex, "Wow! Woah! It's true. They are both _mine_. So that means Clarissa is Carolyn's and Carter is Cat's?"

Alex presses a few buttons and continues, "Yes and Yes. But, wait Kara, there's more to all of this. There's something else super significant that you need to know. Just look on this screen again, the orange strand line at the top is your Kryptonian DNA sequence. The red is Cameron's DNA sequence and the blue is Carter's. The purple is Callie's and the pink is Clarissa's. Obviously, I don't have a sample of either Cat or Carolyn's DNA, but I was able to successfully compare the kids to each other's and to yours."

"So, What did you find out? What is this extra news you need to tell me?"

Alex briefly answers, "There are a number of scientific anomalies with the kids' DNA. It's like discovery of a brand new science."

Kara interrupts, "Yeah, and?"

Alex answers again, "Watch as I press this button. It shows how much of your Kryptonian DNA matches each of the kids."

Kara looks at the screen and curiously asks, "How come my DNA only matches a small part of each of theirs?

Alex explains as best as she can, "That's where the biggest anomaly lies. You would think the two boys and two girls were separated sets of fraternal twins with 50% your DNA and 50% of either Cat or Carolyn's. BUT, instead, all four kids are in a sense separated fraternal quadruplets.

Kara interrupts, "I'm slightly lost. What does that even mean?"

Alex explains, "Well, they all have _three_ , _not_   _two_ mothers. They only have forty percent of your DNA, thirty percent of mother b's DNA and thirty percent of mother c's DNA. Presumedly, Cat and Carolyn are, respectively, mother b and mother c. The kids should all have some different genes from each of their mothers, hence the hair and eye color differences we have seen on the surface level."

Kara stutters out, "Holy Rao! How?!?"

Alex answers, "I was hoping you could shed some light there? Did you have a rowdy threesome with the Grant sisters?"

Kara playfully slaps her sister on her forearm and laughs before she gives her sister a stern look. "How dare you ask me something so unsavory like that?!? Are you kidding me, right now, Alex? NO! Of course not!"

Alex continues, "I don't want to have to say or think of this, BUT you got intimate with both of them, didn't you?"

"Okay. YES. That's true. GUILTY! I had sexual relations with both of those two women. It was more than that though. I felt like they were both my _soulmates_ in different ways. Still, this is so confusing! How can I explain this to all the kids and to Cat? I don't even know how to tell her the truth of who I am and how she knew me before."

Alex responds, "I don't know, Kara. Somehow you will find a way. It's not your fault. You didn't know you could reproduce with humans let alone two sisters who are humans. Maybe you should either ask Clark or go to the Fortress of Solitude for answers? Your ship and your mother's hologram program are located there now for safekeeping."

Kara replies, "NO! I really didn't know either that I could get pregnant or get others pregnant especially not either by or with _earth_ women. Kal wouldn't understand this. I don't know how I would explain to him that Cat Grant and I have kids together. And, Lois...I can't even."

Alex laughs as she offers, "Honestly, Lois would probably just be jealous more than anything else! I mean her and Clark have Jon, but you and Cat have four kids together. And, I bet you didn't know this, but Cat and Lois were together as a couple once a long time ago long before Cat's husband and before Clark and Lois ever got together."

An astonished Kara responds, "Oh Good, Rao, Alex! How do you know more about Cat's _romantic_ history than I do?"

Alex replies, "Well, You haven't seen her in almost 18 years and I am a secret government agent, remember? After I saw how much her kids resemble yours, I dug into her background romantic and otherwise. She really hasn't been involved in any _serious_ romantic relationships since you knew her. At least none that were widely publicized."

Kara smiles as she replies, "Really? Well, that's _interesting_. Anyways, what about either abilities or powers for all the kids?"

"I think your kids have not fully developed powers because they are both human and Kryptonian. All four kids are, in fact, slightly more human than Kryptonian likely because of their two human mothers. This may be why their powers haven't fully developed yet. BUT, that doesn't mean they won't develop powers like yours. Obviously, we already know Cameron and Callie have heightened sensitivities with hearing and their eye sight. I think that is related to them living in your Kryptonian womb as fetuses. They also have some level of super strength and super speed. Cat's kids probably either do or will have similar abilities and sensibilities as well. I did some other digging around and found out Carter and Clarissa are on running teams at their school. They likely have some level of super speed. These tests I did to match your DNA with your kids and theirs to each other is only rudimentary."

Kara interrupts and asks, "What does that mean?"

Alex answers, "Well, I have your full genome entirely mapped out and Winn just mapped out Cameron and Callie's and came up with a few pertinent links between theirs and yours. Your exercise tests mapped out what genes connect to your powers. I really need samples of the other kids' blood and Cat's blood too to test what traits are dominant and recessive in all your children. We won't have a chance to test Carolyn's blood, but Cat's blood will be very similar as they have the same parents. Your kids likely have some mixture of both the dominant and recessive Grant family genes."

Kara chimes in, "Cat and Carolyn have the same blood type as well, AB negative. I know that's kind of rare."

Alex asks, "How do you know that they have the same blood type?"

Kara answers, "Carolyn was really sick in college and needed a blood transfusion from Cat."

Alex questions, "Was it something genetic?

Kara answers, "No, but Carolyn died of cancer when Clarissa and Carter were only three years old."

Alex responds, "Well, your kids likely have self-healing abilities so human illnesses even cancer shouldn't affect them. Also, your kids have a truly unique  _hybrid_ blood type."

Kara asks, "What do you mean?"

Alex answers, "It's _new_. It's more or less kryptuman. It's not fully Kryptonian and not fully human. If any of them ever get hurt they can give each other blood, but no one else's blood will help them not even yours or Kal's."

Kara replies, "Then, I have to protect them from getting hurt. And, they all do need to know the truth much sooner than later. Is Cat going to _hate_ me?"

Alex supportively answers, " _NO!_  She will not. At least she better not. I will _hurt_ her if she hurts you. She cared for you once. Maybe she will care for you again. She loves her own kids. She will want to know the truth. I know this is all new and kind of scary. I will stand by you and the kids, all of them, no matter what happens."

Kara replies, "Thank you, sis! I need some time to process all of this, but I will figure out a way to tell them all soon."

"So, hey how about we go grab enough pizza and potstickers to feed the small army of you and the kids and go have an impromptu movie night with my favorite niece and nephew!"

Kara smiles. "Sounds like the best plan to get my mind off of all of this, for now. Let's go!"

The two sisters leave before Winn can tell them about his  _bizarre_  phone call with Miss Grant. He doesn't mind as he doesn't want to alarm them, _yet_. He will call James though later to warn him about Cat fishing around for information on Kara. He knows it's been a long day for all of them.


	8. Sunday Surprises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the past, a couple of secondary characters are featured (Alex, Lucy and Eliza). They will appear a little more in the present in future chapters) and there's a family brunch with the Danvers' sisters, their mom and a few guests. 
> 
> Trigger warnings for homophobia mention related to Lucy being in the army in 1999 and another Trigger Warning for a brief m/f coupling physical abuse moment. 
> 
> And, ugh, someone uninvited shows up too for a Danvers family outing. 
> 
> In the present, Kara and Cat find themselves lost in their private introspective thoughts about meeting again and how to bring up and deal with their shared past. They have a little bit of a meet-up moment here and tensions rise.
> 
> The present year is set to/will stay last year 2017 because that is when I started writing this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello to my very patiently waiting followers and new readers! I apologize because I know it's been way, way, way too long since the last update - over a year now?!? Yikes! My work hours changed after I started this and I've just lost dedication to this as there was literally no SuperCat interaction in Season 3 to help my motivation. Thank you for joining or returning! We need more Cat Grant back on Supergirl, but I know Calista is doing other things.
> 
> Since the last update, I actually did a major overhaul of dialogue transitions in the earlier chapters and added some minor detail stuff not integral to re-read, but you might want to. I decided to try and make it mostly uniform for Carolyn to be called Lynn in the flashback past scenes and referred primarily as Carolyn in the present. Cat I do switch back and forth with her Professor Willis title.
> 
> Also, I changed the ages of the characters in the flashback 1999 scenes so Kara is 18 to start with and Cat is a little younger at 27, Lynn/Carolyn is 22.

  1. * * *




 

**Same Saturday Afternoon into Sunday 1999   Alex's Apartment / NCU / Dominic's Brunch Restaurant**

 

At Alex Danvers' off-campus apartment, Lucy Lane thinks the Chinese food delivery guy is at the door so she answers it in just a tiny grey ribbed tank top and red satin/silky panties. She hopes that the delivery guy might take one look at her fine figure and knock five or ten bucks off of their order.

After a long few minutes, Alex calls out for her, "Luce, sweetums, you are letting some slimey delivery dude get too good of a look at your sexy bosom and lascivious little legs that belong to me and my eyes only!"

Alex's ears perk up when she hears the laughter and choke coughs of another woman who is definitely not a random delivery dude, "Uhh, hmm, Alexandra, honey, it's actually your mother here. I swear to you I covered my eyes just as soon as this young lady opened the door. I only got a teensy tiny glimpse of what little she is wearing."

Alex sends two frantic texts to Kara about Eliza stopping by unannounced before she hops, skips and jumps into a pair of workout sweats, runs out and tosses pants and a tank top to Lucy at the front door as she shrieks out, "Oh Good Gawd! Mom! I guess you just unofficially met my roommate, Lucy."

Eliza chuckles before she responds, "Oh, honey, you can tell me the truth. It looks and sounds like you and Lucy are much more than roommates. This seems to be quite a turn-around from that James Olsen character you told me she was dating, but is Lucy your girlfriend now? Sweetie, it's perfectly okay if you are gay!" 

Alex blushes bright red and deeply sighs as a smirking Lucy chimes in, "Actually, I, myself, am bisexual, but James and I are, very obviously, no longer together. I only have feelings for your daughter Alex now. I'm not entirely sure how Alex identifies, sexually speaking, except to say she is quite gay for me. I keep prodding her with the same question about our relationship status to no avail."

Eliza walks over to Alex and playfully smacks her on the back of the head, "Alexandra, Why are you always such a dolt about relationships?!? Can't you see this lovely girl is absolutely smitten with you?"

Just then Lucy's army reserves pager buzzes in the room. Unfortunately, she needs to change into her fatigues and run off before she gets to talk with Eliza more. Just to irritate Alex she first pecks her cheek goodbye, but then slides her lips down over Alex's and forces her into a passionately dueling-tongue kiss.

Alex pulls back after a few short moments, quietly laughs and leans over and whispers in Lucy's ear, "Hey! Hey! You are leaving me alone here and you just had to put on the thick pda right in front of my mother?"

Lucy just devilishly winks at Alex. She then turns to Eliza and offers her hand, "It's been a real pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Danvers! I will likely be gone until late tomorrow afternoon, but if you are still around when I do get back we should definitely talk more about this one."

Eliza laughs again and pulls Lucy in for an impromptu hug, "Lucy, you can just call me Eliza. Mrs. Danvers sounds way too formal. I hope to have a late brunch with both my girls tomorrow afternoon around 2pm. Maybe you can make it, too?"

Lucy widely smiles as she replies, "I shall truly try my best, Mrs...Uhh...Eliza."

Soon after Lucy leaves, the actual Chinese delivery guy finally arrives and Alex gets a few moments of reprieve from Eliza's scrutiny of her relationship  situation with Lucy while she argues with him about some missing stuff that she realizes Lucy must have snatched up on her way out. Eliza walks up behind them and offers to pay, which Alex reluctantly accepts. Alex takes the food inside and puts it down before she pretends to step off to go to the bathroom, but really calls Kara and leaves her a few voicemail messages while Eliza grabs plates and utensils and chopsticks for them. They sit on the couch to eat with the food containers laid out on the makeshift dining coffee table in front of them.

"Thank you, mom for paying for this! Before you say anything, please, I just need to tell you that I do care about Luce a great deal, but this is all so shiny and brand new for me, mom. We've only been together a short time. We are not getting hitched and definitely not popping out grandchildren for you anytime soon, so please don't ask!"

Eliza brightly smiles at Alex. "Honey, it doesn't matter to me if you are straight, bisexual or a lesbian as you are still my beautiful, brilliant now almost completely grown child whom I am proud of and whom I dearly love. As long as you are happy, Alex, that's all that truly matters, sweetheart. And, no rush on the grandchildren. I know it's still an eventual possibility down the road?"

Alex lightly laughs as she hugs her mother. "I'm gay, mom. I'm a lesbian. And, hmm, my own kids? I dunno. Maybe someday far from now!"

Eliza smiles at Alex, "Well, let me put what I said before another way. It does matter to me that you are a lesbian because that's an important part of who you are. I will always support who you are and who you love as long as she treats you right!"

Around the same time Alex and Eliza share their bonding moment, Kara steps out of Stevie-O's with Lynn and notices a number of missed calls on her phone. Three voicemails are left by Mike that she ignores and two more from her adoptive sister, Alex. She is about to listen to Alex's messages when she sees a string of urgent texts from her sister as well. Alex is in major panic mode because Alex's actual and Kara's adoptive mother, Eliza, very unexpectedly stopped by and caught her and someone she doesn't name quite literally with their pants down/off.

Lynn watches as Kara looks down and both awkwardly grimaces and boisterously laughs at her phone screen as they walk back to campus.

She asks Kara, "Hey?!? Are you okay? What's wrong?"  

A half-frowning, half-smirking Kara answers, "Oh, Lynn! I'm sorry. My sister needs me to help run interference with our nosy mother. I know you wanted to watch movies and pig out on ice cream tonight in our floor lounge, but we will just have to raincheck that?"

Lynn smiles back at Kara and nods as she replies, "Hey, that's cool. No worries at all, girl. Go help your sister!"

Kara gives Lynn a quick hug. She then slowly jogs off towards the bus stop for the city. Once Lynn is out of sight, she super speed bolts off to her destination.

After Kara gets to Alex's apartment and things settle down, she texts and invites Lynn to Sunday brunch with her sister and their mom. Lynn happily accepts the unexpected invitation. 

The next day at the brunch  restaurant called Dominic's or Dom's, as Eliza calls it as she is friends with the owner, Dom. Lucy actually arrives early still in her military fatigues while Lynn runs a bit late. The Danvers' sisters and Lucy talk as they wait to be seated. Kara thinks it is absolutely hilarious when she hears Lucy retell what happened when she answered the door and hoped to see just a random delivery guy. It is so unlike Alex at all to have her hand stuck in the proverbial cookie, well, _nookie_ jar, in this instance, until mom spoils the fun when she catches you red handed. It is usually Kara who gets her hands into something like their mom's chocolate pecan pie when she isn't supposed to have any before dinner.

When they do sit down, Kara tells Alex, "I can't believe you and Lucy are so happy together now? What happened with James?"

Lucy answers before Alex can, "James and I have major differences of opinion about my impending military career. We broke up back in May."

A curious Eliza interjects, "Oh, Lucy, are you enlisting as soon as you finish school? Will you and Alex still stay together?

Lucy explains, "Yes I have already signed up to serve. And, Yes, I do hope that Alex and I will stay together. I won't be deployed anywhere right away. There is a base not far outside of National City in the California desert that I will be stationed at temporarily. I will have to live there. Unfortunately, Alex won't be able to live with me or visit me there because of the current controversial and discriminatory 'Don't Ask Don't Tell' policy. But, Alex will be starting medical school so we will both be very busy. Still, I'm sure we can make our relationship work even with both of us being busy. I will come visit National City whenever I can. We have already talked about this and we are trying to just enjoy the time we have together this year as much as we can."

Eliza responds, "It sounds like you have a good head on your shoulders and a good idea of what you want and how to get it. So how did you end up courting my very stubborn and often indecisive  daughter?"

Lucy excitedly answers, "After James and I split up, Alex and I kind of danced around each other all summer. There's always been this underlying let's call it romantic tension between us since we met freshman year. We finally got together in the beginning of August at a gay dance club when we didn't find any other girls we wanted to dance with. Well, I kind of screwed up and took her there on one of the only nights the club opens up to mainly straight patrons."

Alex adds, "I don't think it was really an accident. She took me there on purpose to get me to choose to dance with her. But, her trick worked splendidly. I was way too nervous to ask any of those other girls to dance with me. A few girls asked me and I declined, but Lucy saw that when she was dancing with another girl and waved me over to join them. When a slower song started playing that other girl turned to dance with someone else and it was just Lucy and I."

Lucy wickedly grins at Alex. "And Alex danced right into my arms and later on my bed!"

Alex whacks Lucy with her menu in protest. "I had a little too much to drink that night. I admittedly fell into her bed lightly kissing her and Lucy made me drink a ton of water before I actually just fell asleep."

Lucy adds, "In my arms again."

Eliza and Kara jokingly coo just as Lynn walks up to the table to join them with their waiter at her heels. This makes things just a little more awkward as Lucy and Lynn briefly dated 3 years ago. The waiter sets down a round of waters with lemon as well as free mimosas courtesy of the owner Dom and tells them he will give them a few minutes. The Danvers ladies all take a sip of their drink as Lucy smiles and waves and warmly welcomes their newest guest.

"Lynn, it's so nice to see you! It's been such a long time!"

"Oh, hey Lucy! I heard your Kara's sister's roommate?"

Lucy nods and adds as she briefly kisses Alex's cheek, "And her lady."

Lynn widely smiles. "That's great! Congratulations to you two!"

Lucy replies, "Thank You! So what about you and Kara? Are you two doing the horizontal tango yet?"

Kara cheeks turn bright red as she almost chokes on air. "Whaaaat, Pfft, NO!!! As if! I'm still with Mike, Luce."

Lynn frowns a little, but only Alex and Eliza notice it.

Kara stands up and holds onto one of Lynn's hands. "Oh, where are my manners? Mom and Alex this is my new good friend Carolyn who prefers Lynn, umm, Lynn Grant. She's the RA on my floor."

Lucy notices the awkward smiles between the girls as Kara pulls Lynn's chair out for her.

As soon as Kara sits back down, Lucy offers, "Still, imagine my surprise when Alex told me you once had the cutest crush on another older girl once, Kara, a May something or other."

Alex swats Lucy again with her napkin this time. "Luce, I told you that in confidence!"

Kara blushes and holds both her hands over her eyes and groans as Lynn looks at her and laughs.

Eliza smiles as she speaks up to tell the story,"Aah, yes, that little mischievous red devil Maisy Reynolds girl. Kara just started 6th grade and she couldn't stop rambling on about this 8th grade girl with red curly hair who helped her find her homeroom and invited her to eat lunch with her and her friends, on Kara's first day of middle school, when she saw they had the same lunch period. Kara talked about Maisy like she hung the stars in the sky. She shared Kara's interests in both Science and Writing. I wasn't entirely comfortable with my youngest daughter spending so much time with older kids, but Kara was so happy to have a new best friend!"

As Kara blushes more, Alex continues the story, "So Maisy came over to help Kara with her Science Fair project a few weeks later when mom was out at work. Our mom walked in and got the shock of her life and dropped a bag of groceries including glass jars when she found this tiny little girl half a foot shorter than Kara with big, thick red glasses leaning over the back of the living room couch squeezing her arms around Kara's neck and kissing Kara's cheek."

Kara groans again, "I didn't know or understand what I had done wrong, but I wasn't allowed to have any unsupervised study times with Maisy or any other older friends after that as either Alex or Mom sat in the same room."

Lucy and Lynn snicker as Alex adds, "I'm surprised Maisy came back at all after that. She really liked Kara too. I guess enough not to be put off by my mom yelling at her for quote 'corrupting her little girl who was much too young to be accepting even mild romantic advances from a girl two years older' unquote."

Lynn begs the question, "So what happened with her Kara? How did you not end up eventually dating Maisy?"

Kara answers, "Like our mom said Maisy was two years older. We were still so young and girls didn't really date girls openly when we were that age or even at all. Being attracted to other girls was kind of taboo when we were younger. I know you are out and proud now, Lynn, but I think you must have experienced that hesitation about being open about your attractions when you were younger at some level too."

Kara pauses and Lynn nods in agreement. "Anyways, Maisy's dad got a new job and her and her family moved away out of state after that one year I knew her. We wrote letters back and forth for about a year, but then we completely lost touch. I met Mike around the same time. I maybe didn't have the same butterfly flutters in my stomach as I had with Maisy right away with Mike, but he always made me laugh."

Just as Kara finishes, their waiter walks up to ask if they are now ready to order and Kara gasps as her boyfriend Mike Daxam stands behind him holding something behind his back.

Mike brightly smiles as he pulls out a bouquet of plastic flowers that actually squirt water all over his girlfriend, "Surprise, Kara!"

Kara rather loudly shouts out, "Mike, what the actual hell?!? I'm soaked!"

Mike apologizes, "Kara, babe, I'm so sorry! I wanted to get you some flowers and the only place near here that had any was a little joke shop. I didn't realize they would squirt water like that. I thought they were just plastic. But, you got to admit it's hilarious! Right?"

Kara rolls her eyes at him and gets up to go try and dry herself off in the ladies room. Eliza reluctantly allows Mike to join them for brunch.

She tells him, "Michael, when I told you a few nights ago I was coming to visit Alex and Kara that was not exactly an open invitation for you to crash the visit!"

Mike runs a hand through his greasy unwashed, unkempt hair as he answers, "I know, I know but Kara's been ignoring my calls and texts the last few days and I thought if I showed up at your brunch today she would definitely talk to me. I miss her terribly, Mrs. Danvers."

Lucy smiles wickedly at Alex since Mike is obviously not allowed to call Eliza by her first name just as Alex responds to Mike before Eliza can, "She's been busy with school Mike and making new friends."

Lynn unimpressedly looks over at Mike in his stained black t-shirt and ripped light jeans and introduces herself, "Hi, I'm Lynn Grant, one of Kara's new friends."

Meanwhile as Kara starts to walk through Dom's to the ladies room, she almost immediately pauses when she notices Professor Willis and her husband in the back of the room at a secluded table scowling at each other. There's a newspaper on the table that with her enhanced vision she can see features a photo of a man who looks like Professor Willis' husband holding some red-headed woman that is clearly not his blonde-coiffed wife to his chest on a bridge in Berlin.

She overhears her Professor tell her husband, "Nick, I think we need a trial separation to start. It's not like we see each other more than a week or two a month as it is right now."

He scoffs back, "Hmph, That's just not good for my business, Cat! Besides both of the people in this photo are wearing sunglasses there's no way you can absolutely prove that's me."

Cat gets up and throws a napkin down on the table in disgust. "Or Valerie Schneider, for that matter, right?!? I can't believe you keep going to Berlin just to see her. No wonder securing this international broadcasting rights deal has taken you over a year! If you plan to go back to Berlin next week and you stay there more than a few days than I want more than a trial separation, I want a divorce!"

Nicholas stands up and grabs and digs his nails hard into Cat's arm and says, "No! I refuse to divorce you! I love you, Cat!" as she yelps out in pain.

Cat pulls her now cut and likely bruising arm away and knocks her elbow against a close by coat stand before she yells back, "Way to show it! Just leave! I don't want to talk here. I will find my way home, but you better not be there when I get there. We can meet at my office tomorrow?"

Nicholas Willis affirmatively nods and throws a crisp hundred dollar bill on the table and turns around and leaves.

Cat visibly shivers as she runs off to the ladies room to attend to her small wound. Instead of cleaning her arm right away, though, she locks herself in one of the stalls and sits Indian style like a little kid over the lid of the closed toilet seat. Her entire body shakes as she cups her hands over her face and vehemently cries. A mix of blood and tears now covers her left arm. She loves her husband. They have had shouting matches before, but nothing like this. He's never physically hurt her, until just now, but he is good at emotionally belittling her.

Since she both loves him and wants more with him, for the past two years she's both ignored and denied the rumors of his philandering ways. Cat thinks of how there's a more unforgivably vile rumor now that Valerie's pregnant with Nicholas' child. But, in that photo the woman wears a long coat so it's hard to tell. Of course, Nicholas denies it's true, but Cat is absolutely devastated by that possibility. Despite her misgivings about having children, herself, Nicholas and her had been actively trying to get pregnant for the past 6 months. They just didn't want to tell anybody until well after it happened, which it hasn't. 

She stops crying when the ladies room door opens and she hears Kara enter and call out, "Professor Willis, uhh, uhr, Cat? I sort of saw what happened. Are you okay?"

Cat muffles a few coughs as she wipes her face and arm with toilet tissue as tries to compose herself. She is unsure she even wants to admit she's here to her student who always seems to always pop up in the unlikeliest places. 

It startles Cat when Kara very unexpectedly climbs over the bathroom stall and jumps down to get closer to her. Cat loudly shrieks.

Kara somehow just smiles as she says, "Sorry. It's okay. I'm here to hopefully help. My adopted mom Eliza she's a doctor. Let me just take look at your arm?"

Cat lightly nods and Kara gently holds up Cat's injured arm.

Cat looks at Kara's soaked shirt and asks, "Why pray tell are you all wet?"

Kara laughs and jokingly replies as she feels lingering teardrops on Cat's arm, "Not like you are not wet too."

Right then a bunch of people come running into the bathroom to check on the commotion including Lucy, Alex, Lynn and Eliza. 

 

* * *

**The Next Day  Sunday 2017          Kara's House / Cat's House / National City Beach / Pier**

 

Kara wakes up later than usual around midday after the pizza and potstickers movie night party with Alex and the kids. Her anxiety and nerves about everything with Cat and their kids were temporarily relieved during their family fun time last night. In the morning light that washes over her now, she is, unfortunately, all wound up in restless thoughts again about how everything with Cat and the kids could either work out well or all tremendously fall apart.

She gets up and does a quick workout to relieve some of the tension she feels again before she speedily washes and dresses for the day. She slides on running clothes and shoes. She ties her hair up in a ponytail, but leaves her glasses off. When she leaves her room, she finds the kids asleep over and under a large pile of pillows. Even at seventeen the kids still love a good pillow fort. Alex, herself, is sprawled out still snoozing on the couch as well.

Kara gently taps Alex's shoulder and when Alex stirs, Kara tells her sister, "Alex, I'm so sorry. I need to go out for awhile alone. Do you think you can watch the kids for a few hours? Thank you for all your help so far. I just need some time to think and we can talk about all of this some more later. I promise, okay?"

Alex just sleepily nods as Kara runs out of her own apartment in an emotional daze. For the first time in a long time she sprints in a near super speed burst down to the National City waterfront. The tide is out now and she sits in one of her favorite spots under the pier on a giant grey rock semi-covered in seaweed and algae. Kara watches the tide as it slowly crawls its way back in with a mix of crashing short and long waves.

She finds herself mesmerized by the water's motions. She soon loses herself some serious introspective thought. Thanks to Alex and Winn she knows quite a bit more now about both her own children and Cat's children, who apparently are all Cat's and Carolyn's as well. Still, while some answers are found, many more questions abound.

Alex will need Cat's blood and Carter and Clarissa's too to fully confirm everything and to potentially figure out what abilities and powers the kids either do or will have. That will not be something Kara can get from Cat and her kids without telling Cat the truth about everything.

She wonders about how she can tell Cat the truth when she doesn't even know the half of it herself? Even when she does tell Cat, Cat might not believe her. Cat may be reluctant to offer up her and the kids' blood samples to confirm things. It's all a rather delicate and tricky situation.

Kara knows she needs to learn more about her own Kryptonian heritage and history to figure out how and why this all happened. She needs and wants to visit the Fortress of Solitude, but with her new job and her other time spent with her kids she really does not have the free time to take off for a few days to do this.

Her cousin carved out the Fortress of Solitude deep in the Arctic wilderness in the Northern Hemisphere of the earth where all of the Kryptonian technology that arrived with Kara and Kal-El in their pods is stored for safe keeping. Additionally, Clark/Kal recovered random Kryptonian technology from visiting other worlds that he relocated there as well.

Kara knows she cannot just drop Alex and Winn off there unsupervised to do research for her, either, especially when the Fortress is a very frigid space and their Kryptonian language knowledge is rudimentary at best. She cannot tell Clark/Kal about any of this either. At least, not yet. She may still need his help, but she is very reluctant to ask for it.

Maybe in a few weeks, Alex could watch her kids for a weekend. Either that or they probably could stay at Cat's with their new friends who are unknowingly their siblings. Kara thinks 'Oh Rao!' She needs to tell them all sooner or later. She knows the kids are all friendly enough with each other. They kids better not be developing any romantic interests in each other because that would just be way too awkward and weird.

Almost immediately, Kara turns her thoughts back to the space inside of her mind that holds her own romantic feelings, interests and longings. She is still very much attracted to Cat. How could she not be? Cat is still gorgeous and graceful in her slender, yet clearly still flexible figure. Kara feels like a silly schoolgirl with a crush on the out of reach teacher again. But, no, that's not what this is that's going on with them now. She and Cat are both mature adults now with nearly grown children. Children that deserve to know the truth about their true parentage.

Meanwhile, Cat momentarily allows herself to be content with just the knowledge that Leslie provided her. Kara Kent is, indeed, the same Kara she once cared so deeply for nearly twenty years ago. Kara is back and present now in Cat's immediate orbit. She daily walks through the same halls of at least her work space and world. Their children both interact with each other and get along well.

Cat now regrets being so jokingly cruel, in the past, by, continually, calling Kara by both the wrong first and last name. That practice somehow only imprinted Kara's real first name and not her last in Cat's mind. Of course, only Kara's first name truly matters as long as it is her real name.

Still, if Cat just knew Kara's previous last name she could possible shock her into a revelatory confession by nonchalantly dropping it into a regular conversation. Still, that's probably not the best idea. It may rattle Kara and cause her to run off. Cat does have more tact now.

Blunt cruelty and needless pettiness will not win her any points with the more mature adult woman Kara is now. It will not bring her any closer to the real answers she so desperately needs to know. She needs to prove to Kara somehow that she can confide in her without judgment.

Cat does remember the fake last name she called Kara by, _Denvers_ , so her real one must start with a D and be similar to that name, but she just can't decipher the coded mystery of what it is from out of her muddled memories of her past life at NCU. Her mind is mixed up with new and old emotions and feint memories of happier times with Kara. Of course, the two ladies have made some new memories now as well as co-workers, fellow mothers and, perhaps, dare Cat proffer, friends?

Cat truly hopes and wishes to learn and know Kara's real story, who she really is, why she disappeared and reappeared years later as a very well re-made version of her past self. Cat questions herself though as to whether she has a right to know who Kara is and what happened to Kara after she tossed her out of her life like one, naturally, discards yesterday's already read newspaper.

Cat is quite curious about why Kara uses a different name than before and how her two kids look, remarkably, similar to Cat's own. Well, her own son and her sister's daughter. Over the last 14 years, Clarissa became more or less her own child and daughter as well.

Cat can never forget her baby sister, Carolyn, whose dreams were cut short by illness way too soon. Clarissa carries her light on in her life now. Cat knew of Carolyn's crush on Kara, but she didn't think her and her sister ever got together, intimately? Cat still believes it to be rather strange that Carolyn could never tell her the truth about Clarissa's father. She remembers Carolyn adamantly telling her, 'She has no father.'

Cat just wrote that off as Carolyn protecting herself and Clarissa from something sordid and unseemly. Carolyn did leave a sealed letter for Clarissa that is securely locked in a safe in Cat's home office that is not to be given to Clarissa until she turns 18. That is only a few short months away. Also, if Cat ever mentioned Kara, Carolyn either clammed up or immediately changed the subject. Cat is tempted to go to the safe and open the letter, but she does not do that. She cannot take whatever words Carolyn left for Clarissa from her.

Even if Carolyn and Kara had sex, as Cat and Kara had, how could Kara have either impregnated them both or become pregnant herself by them as she knows Kara isn't sporting male equipment? Cat thinks on this for a few long minutes and starts to get a bad headache. She goes and grabs a few Tylenol and lies down on her couch.

She thinks about Kara's reporting interests and something striking clicks in her mind. It's more of a question than an answer though. Cat posits to herself, 'What if Kara is somehow an alien from another planet like Superman?'

Cat somehow understands that Kara would take on the Kent moniker as Clark Kent is, in Kara's own admission, her cousin. Surely, Clark either helped her launch her reporting career or at least helped her secure her first job at the Daily Planet. Still, Cat remembers that Kara is more than talented enough to have survived in the often cutthroat world of investigative Journalism without her cousin's or any man's constantly guiding and helping hand.

From that encounter with Rhea Daxam a few weeks back, Cat realizes Kara needed to run away from that playboy son of Rhea's Michael/Mike Daxam. Cat is grateful Kara's two kids never had to know him. From what Kara had to say about him, he seemed like a cheating scumbag and wannabe lothario who was really little more than a man child who couldn't take responsibility for himself never mind taking responsibility for getting his young girlfriend pregnant and taking care of her and his two children. Ironically, Cat's former husband, whom she once loved, probably would have, similarly, walked out on her and Carter if he hadn't died more fittingly than tragically with his own mistress.

Nicholas Willis and Michael Daxam could have been charter members of the same douchebag cheaters and deadbeat dad club if they knew each other. As it's almost mid-afternoon, Cat decides she needs and deserves a double highball for having to think too long about scumbags like Nick and Mike. In all honesty, their deaths do her and Kara the great favor of not having to expose their children to the failures that they were as selfish, self-centered human beings. They likely would have failed their children as they would neither be available nor loving fathers.

Cat never speaks ill of Nicholas to Carter though. She can't do that to her only son. He needs to believe that his father was a decent man who would have deeply cared about him. She made Carter believe that Nicholas cared about her too. Once upon a long time ago, he did. They even talked about having children, but he wanted to wait a few more years. Cat could never decide if she really wanted them or not. She got the chance and the years with Carter that Nicholas didn't get. She wouldn't trade that chance and those years for anything else in the world.

It truly frightened Cat the day she found out she was pregnant with Carter just seven weeks after Nicholas' death. However Carolyn, thankfully, but very unexpectedly showed up on her doorstep with the same news about herself that very day. They were both full of shock together for themselves and each other. They helped each other through the messes and joys of being pregnant and having children. They raised their kids together even through the trial of Carolyn's short illness.

Cat decides to try and remove herself from all of these heavy thoughts. She goes to wash up. She gets dressed in her grey Metropolis University sweatpants and a plain maroon long sleeved, ribbed henley shirt. She takes a long walk down the National City beach. She spots a woman who sits on the biggest rock under the National City Pier.

When Cat overhears Kara talk to herself she knows it's who she suspects it is. As Kara quietly speaks to the wind around her in stutters, "I want to tell you Cat...I want you Cat...no I need you Cat to know...I want us..."

Cat carefully and quietly sits down on the same rock as Kara behind her and the motion startles Kara who turns around with a beyond stunned look upon her face. Before Kara can say anything Cat surprises even herself as she admits out loud, "I think what I want is another chance with you too, Kara."

She pulls Kara with her right hand by her shirt closer to her and cups her chin with her left hand, leans in, softly smiles as she waits for Kara to nod that this is okay before she chastely kisses her. It's delicate and tender and sweet. There's no desperation or roughness to the feel of their lips meeting this time and slowly moving together after so long, but a strange electric charge they both feel that causes them not to repel from each other, but to press their bodies closer together. As Kara feels Cat run her tongue along her upper lip to beg for entrance, Kara suddenly stops the kiss from going any further. She abruptly pulls back from Cat's hold on her mouth and honestly her heart and carefully jumps off the rock.

Kara breathlessly points back and forth between herself and Cat before she yells, "NO! No! NO! NO! I'm sorry! I thought I could do that, but I can't. We can't do this, Cat! I'm not ready for whatever _this_ is."

In her own head space, Kara says the hopeful words she will not voice out loud to Cat, _not_ _yet_.

Kara starts to just rapidly walk, not run away from Cat, but Cat chases and pleads with her to stop, "Kara, please, wait. It's okay. _I_ _know_."

Kara looks back at Cat and a few teardrops fall from her eyes as she argues with Cat, "What?!? No, you couldn't possibly know _anything_. You truly don't know. I'm just not ready to tell you anything, yet, either. I really need to go."

Kara fully sprints away from Cat now careful to keep her pace at human speed.

Cat deeply sighs, but also whispers to herself aloud, "It's okay. I can wait." Kara stills in her sprint and clutches a hand to her chest as she overhears Cat.

Cat thinks of how she has waited nearly twenty years to kiss Kara again. What's a little more time. Plus, Cat knows she deeply hurt Kara all those years ago. She knows they need to talk about that before they can move forward. But, Cat is also curious now about what things she doesn't know and what else Kara holds back from telling her.

Kara wipes her face as she continues her jog away from Cat now up a wooden staircase onto the pier itself and as she is halfway up the pier runs right into a random person who grasps her arm.

Kara looks down at the arm that holds hers and then up to a face she vaguely recognizes, "Mah, mah, mah, Maisy Reynolds?"

"Kara, Kara Dan..."

Kara quickly interrupts Maisy before she finishes, "Umm, No! _It's actually_ Kara Kent now!"

Maisy responds, "Oh! Well, I got married too! I'm Maisy Jones now. Your name change is why I could never find you when I tried to look you up?!? Your mom and sister always came up, but no search engine finds for you, the _former_ , but forever _fantastic_ _Kara_ _Danvers err Kent!"_

Kara stares at the boardwalk planks, blushes profusely and half smiles. After a moment she remembers who, likely, still trails behind her. She looks up and glares over at Cat who definitely hears the end of Maisy's excited rant.

Cat's lips curl up in a slightly wicked smile. She knows more of the truth now for sure. She already knew in her heart all along this is positively the same Kara she knew before many years ago. Honestly, the feel of that abrupt, yet sweet touch of their lips together just moments ago already confirmed it, but now she knows the name that matches the face of _her_ same Kara past and present.

Maisy asks, "So who is the lucky Mr. or Mrs. Kent? Oh, wait is that Mrs. Kent you were just with? She's walking up behind you!"

Cat smiles and actually laughs now as she hears this other women's insinuation.

Kara choke coughs as Cat steps closer, "Uhh, nope! I'm not actually married."

Maisy awkwardly replies, "Oh! Umm, okay. Is she just your girlfriend then? She's hot!"

Cat chuckles as she answers before Kara can, "No, I'm just her employer. We just ran into each other randomly today just like you two ladies have. Small world, huh?"

Maisy excitedly replies as she recognizes Cat now, "Oh my goodness! Kara Danv-uhh-Kent you work for _Cat_ _Grant_ , the _Queen_ _of_ _All_ _Media?_ "

Kara tries not to groan as she answers, "Yes, I do."

Maisy excitedly replies, "Oh wow! That's so incredible! Maybe we can all go get a drink or bite to eat?"

Before either blonde can think of a believable why they can't do that right now response for Maisy, Cat and Kara's respective sons Cam and Carter speed down the pier on skooters while their daughters Callie and Clarissa glide in on skateboards right behind them and interrupt the ladies as they whip by and accidentally knock Cat and Kara into each other before they all stop short. Cat shrieks, but Kara just holds her up with her arms around her shoulders. The four teens pull their dark sunglasses off almost in unison to apologize, "Sorry...uhh...mom...and...mom?!?"

Maisy looks at the four teens and is quite puzzled. She addresses Kara who still holds Cat, "I thought you weren't married, but you have four kids together--two sets of uhh twins?"

Cat looks up and back at Kara and they both answer Maisy, "Nope and nope. Just a funny coincidence how they do look so similar."

Kara nervously giggles as she nods at both Maisy and Cat.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies that I'm evil for leaving this on two cliff hangers on either side. It shouldn't take me so long to update next time - maybe only a month or two? Maybe less. And it will move beyond this one day next chapter.


End file.
